*mm 



<it<mmm*u- i 




^^MK 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



®$ajr,±.:.. ©upgrig^i f n 

Shelf ...3-51 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



- 



THE 

FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

REV. W. H. LUCKEXBACH, A. M. 

WITH AX INTRODUCTION 

BY 

MILTON VALENTINE, D. D., 

PRESIDENT OP PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE, GETTYSBURG, PA. 






°%i W* 



PHILADELPHIA: ^ib/^flru/i r^i*^ 

LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOC?fi l l , ! l f il1 

1884. 






Copyright, 1884, 
By the Lutheran Publication Society. 



IZ--3& 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface . 5 

Introduction by M. Valentine, D. D. . . \ . . 11 

CHAPTER I. 
The Prevalence of Profanity at Home 17 

CHAPTER II. 
The Prevalence of Profanity Abroad 44 

CHAPTER III. 
The Uselessness of Profanity 64 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Vulgarity of Profanity 87 

CHAPTER V. 

HOW IT iAFFECTS CONVERSATION 109 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Inexcusableness of Profanity 138 

(3) 



4 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. PAGE 

On Reverencing the Name of God 167 

CHAPTER VIII. 
A Sublime Apostrophe to the Deity 189 

CHAPTER IX. 
What the Bible Says of Profanity 220 

CHAPTER X. 
How to Suppress Profanity 245 

CHAPTER XI. 
An Appeal to the Profane 272 

Index of Topics 299 



PREFACE, 



t I ^0 many minds the folly of profanity may be too 
-*- apparent to need a volume of argument to prove ■ 
it. We are glad that we can agree with them, so 
far as they hold that it is a folly. It gratifies us, 
also, to believe that the folly is so apparent to them 
that they neither practice it themselves, nor coun- 
tenance it in others. We heartily wish that there 
vrere no exceptions to this feeling of aversion to it. 
In this event it. would certainly be a work of super- 
erogation, and an actual waste of time and labor, to 
indite a volume against its indulgence. 

But there are very many persons who, though 
guilty of the vice, yet have never given it a serious 
thought. They have habituated themselves to it so 
long, that they seem to have become unconscious of 
its guiltiness. They daily sin against their Maker 
and themselves, with no apparent sense of the enor- 
mity of their offense. It is for them, if they can 
be persuaded to read it, that this essay was written. 
If any thought, suggestion, or statement herein 
presented, shall have the effect of making them half 
as unfriendly towards the vice as is the writer, his 
object will partly be gained; while, if the argument 
(v) 



VI PREFACE. 

of the essay, as a whole, shall persuade them to 
desist entirely from it, that object will be wholly 
accomplished. There is many a swearer who needs 
but a faithful delineation of his vice, in all its hid- 
eousness, to convince him of its criminality,. and, 
hence, of his duty immediately to quit it. While, 
to this end, other and more skillful pens might have 
portrayed it more strikingly, or handled the subject 
more effectually, yet the writer prays Him for the 
vindication of whose name it was attempted, not to 
let this volume fail of its purpose, in the instance of 
any swearer who may think it worth while to read 
it. 

Here and there, in these pages, there is language 
which, to some minds, may seem too severe, as con- 
demning the vice in question. To others, however, 
who have not merely given it a passing, regretful 
thought, but have deeply considered its malignancy, 
as tarnishing the glory both of God and of man, it 
merits even more severe denunciation than the writer 
expresses. True, zeal without discretion is more 
destructive than promotive of the end it contem- 
plates. While we would feel uneasy, indeed, un- 
der such a charge, yet, to discuss so gross a vice as 
profanity, with the view of dissuading men from its 
indulgence, in terms so soft and smooth as almost 
to make the reader think that we were rather en- 
couraging than discouraging it, w T ould just as surely 
occasion in us the feeling of deep self-condemnation, 



PREFACE. » Vll 

The swearer himself, calmly and deliberately look- 
ing at his sin on all sides, cannot but frankly admit, 
that it deserves all the condemnation which any 
zealous "friend of God," when observing it, may 
express. 

The writer, on beginning this volume, expected 
to prepare a chapter on Answered Imprecations . 
But as the facts which he had on hand, touching 
this feature of the general subject, were, to his own 
mind, not sufficiently attested to challenge implicit 
belief, he has therefore omitted it. He has no 
doubt but that a volume of instances, proving that 
God is not always "mocked" with impunity, but 
that He often signally visits the blasphemous swearer 
with unexpected vengeance — instances supported 
by unquestionable testimony — might easily be com- 
piled. If any of the readers of this essay who are 
in possession of well-authenticated examples of an- 
swered oaths, or of instances which have happened 
under their own immediate notice, will communicate 
them to the writer, they may be of some service to 
him, in the event that another edition of this volume 
may be wanted by the public. 

It may not be immodest to state here, that this 
first attempt of the writer at book-making is the 
outgrowth of a sermon on profanity which he has 
preached at different times and places, in the course 
of his ministerial life, and which has always been 
received with the most positive expressions of ap- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

probation. It remains to be seen how much good 
will be accomplished by this more elaborate treat- 
ment of the subject than could be given to it within 
the brief limits of a half hour's discourse. 

We commit it, then — this volume of protest 
against a wide-spread evil — to the public. We 
commit it to the moral as well as to the immoral 
portion of the public. Assured that the former is 
in sympathy with his effort to depict the odiousness 
of a sin which, if allowed unlimited and unrebuked 
indulgence in the world, would eventually convert 
it into a very pandemonium, the writer, therefore, 
need not formally ask them to endorse what he has 
here presented more especially for the good of the 
latter class of persons. No Christian or un-Chris- 
tian mind can be too well filled with reverential 
thought of the Supreme Being. In the cultivation 
of such thought lies the incentive to the scriptural 
duties which He has pronounced essential to salva- 
tion. 

We anticipate, not without some anxiety, the 
ordeal of criticism to which the public is wont to 
submit every book which claims to be worthy of its 
notice. Exceptions will probably be taken to some 
things in the following pages, — things which, though 
not agreeable to them, yet loyalty to truth and duty 
compelled us to write against those whom they con- 
cern. We would have none to divest himself, if it 
were possible, of the right of criticism. All that 



PREFACE. IX 

we ask of any reader who finds that he cannot 
agree with us is a fair, thorough, reasonable exami- 
nation of the matters thus questioned. If he can 
prove that any statement herein made, or idea sug- 
gested, or proposition set forth, is unphilosophical, 
or unscriptural, or both, the writer will not be hu- 
miliated by acknowledging himself at fault. Stim- 
ulated by the difference which the reader may dis- 
cover between his own and our views, to earnest 
inquiry into the nature, tendencies, relations, and 
effects of the common vice of profanity, he will 
probably find himself, after all, quite as hostile to 
it as we, though he may not accord with all our 
sentiments. In the light of reason, or of revela- 
tion, what can be urged as having the force of argu- 
ment for its support ? Nothing, — absolutely noth- 
ing. W. H. L. 
Germantown, Col. Co., jV. Y. 



l^TKODITOTIOK 



THFFORTS for the overthrow of wasting evils 
-*-^ need a more positive encouragement from all 
good men. "Were it given as it should be, the tri- 
umph of virtue and order would be speedily assured. 
The sway of vices is usually to be credited largely 
to the consenting unconcern of Christians. It is 
their negative attitude in moral conflicts, that gives 
the field still to forces of desolation. The bad work 
is done by good men's standing aloof. It is the 
old explanation : "because they came not up to the 
help of the Lord against the mighty." The Chris- 
tian world greatly needs the bracing call : "Ye 
that love the Lord, hate evil." The overthrow of 
wickedness requires the robust strength of a more 
intense hatred of it. Love of virtue is not enough. 
There must be that other side of healthy moral life 
— a holy indignation against wrong-doing, that both 
fortifies personal character and deals destroying 
blows on destroying vices. 

Against no evil of our day, probably, is positive 
effort more needed than against the vice of profan- 
ity. Of its sad prevalence and desolating influence, 
there can be no doubt. Against it should be ar- 

(xi) 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

rayed the earnest help of every Christian and good 
citizen, and the force of every repressive agency. 
Its overthrow will require the combined use of all 
available means. The great agency of the press 
especially must be employed against it. To some 
extent this has long been done, in the way of occa- 
sional paragraph and incidental rebuke. The dis- 
cussion to which these few pages are introductory 
invokes its aid in the fuller form, if not wider meas- 
ure, of the bound volume. 

An entire volume on this subject, we believe, is 
something never before attempted. The subject 
has not been an attractive one for literary ambition. 
It does not invite by the range of bright and pleas- 
ant thought in which self-indulgent taste delights 
to move and enjoy itself. It deals with a vice that 
is so low, so vulgar and offensive to refined feeling, 
that it is difficult to gain and hold to a discussion of 
it the attention of even the sternest moralists. It 
allows no very wide or varied range of thought. It 
calls for a severe and rebuking tone throughout. 
The aversion felt toward the sin is transferred to 
the subject. It is not pleasant work for even Her- 
cules to clean Augean stables. But the greater is 
the merit of the service. And the true servant of 
God does not shrink from it because it may not be 
attractive, or invite by its intrinsic fascinations. 
The work is done at the call of duty. This volume 
is the fruit of a deep conviction that there is here 



INTRODUCTION. xm 

an evil which demands the prompt attention and 

repressing hand of all good men. This certainly 
gives it a strong claim upon the favor of the Chris- 
tian public. 

The work has been written for the people, and 
is to be judged of in the light of its practical aim. 
Seeking to arouse effective opposition against an 
admitted vice, a vice confessed by all to be incapa- 
ble of defense and full of blighting power, the 
author has addressed the appeal to the masses of 
thoughtful and intelligent men. It is largely a plea 
with the profane themselves. Judged of in the 
light of its earnest and most worthy practical de- 
sign, it will be found to be clear, strong, and im- 
pressive. It deals its blows with a view to force. 
Its seeming severity — in trenchant denunciation and 
unspared adjective — will be excused by all such as 
are rightly impressed with the enormity of the evil 
condemned. Many of the books that appear from 
the press are published in response to an awakened 
interest on the subjects of which thev treat. They 
are made for the market, and appear because there 
is a flood-tide of aroused attention that will carry 
them into immense sales. But this volume comes 
to the public apathy on its subject. The ;; strong 
man's goods '' in this house of profanity are com- 
paratively in peace. The vice has free course 
largely by reason of the prevalent unconcern about 
it. One of the terrible features of the evil is that 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

it so hardens the minds of men into insensibility to 
its criminality, that when the sin is greatest it is 
not felt to be sin at all. It seems to be innocent 
when habit has given it its completest sway. The 
need is greater by the very absence of interest on 
the subject. The prevalent indifference must be 
view r ed as the most impressive proof that the work 
is called for. No reform in the land is demanded 
by stronger reasons or more sacred interests. When 
the Christian life of the country is arousing itself 
for the overthrow of the curse of intemperance, and 
the correction of the foul system of easy divorce 
now threatening the holy order of the family, it 
would be eminently fitting if these great reform 
movements were attended by another which should 
break the prevalence of profanity, and save our 
American life from its degrading and hardening 
effects. 

Mr. Luckenbach does not ask us to assent to 
every view expressed in this volume. On some 
points of which he treats, there is room for differ- 
ing opinions. On the question of judicial oaths 
and other points many will dissent. But in the 
great aim of the book, and in the leading line of its 
teaching, all sober and Christian men will cordially 
agree. And they cannot fail to be stimulated by 
reading it to a more earnest endeavor to have the 
sacred name hallowed among men. This volume 
will itself be a ready means to aid them. By put- 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

ting it into the hands of the young, or of persons to 
be preserved or rescued from the wicked habit, 
much good must necessarily be accomplished. 

The author has not dwelt upon profanity in lit- 
erature. Probably the evil in this form is less in 
our times than in some past periods. But there is 
quite enough of it to call for great care on the part 
of parents, and all persons vrho have direction and 
control of the reading of the young. Much of the 
trashy literature of the day, for which, alas ! the 
youthful mind has too keen a relish, is sadly dis- 
figured with profane phrase and ugly expletive. 
Many a young man learns profanity or is trained 
in it by such reading. There is not a single vice 
in the whole list of immoralities which blight char- 
acter and disorder society, that is not begun or 
fostered into ranker growth by the suggestion and 
stimulus of our cheap novels and other low publica- 
tions. The guardians of our public morals are 
finding this an open source of much of the vice that 
is cankering both social and personal life. It is 
not among the lightest grounds of charge against 
this literature, that it weakens and destroys the 
spirit of reverence, and loosens the tongue of pro- 
fanity. 

The practice against which this book is written, 
it must be acknowledged, is too thoroughly fixed 
in the depravity of human nature to allow the 
hope that it will ever wholly cease. Till depravity 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

itself ceases to be irreverent, will it tend to show 
itself in this way. As long as the fountain re 
mains, the stream will flow. Only as men are 
made true Christians, and the reign of divine grace 
through the blessed Gospel shall reach on into its 
millennial ascendency, may we hope that these dis- 
cords of sin will disappear in holy adoration and 
worship. Yet this does not release the servants 
of God and friends of morality from the duty of 
seeking its most effective suppression. Nor does 
it exclude the just hope that a more earnest Christ- 
ianity and a purer civilization, quite attainable, will 
be able to abate much of the evil. A single re- 
covery from it is a reason for much joy. The 
preservation of the young from its blight, to a better 
degree than now, will compensate for all the en- 
deavor that secures it. All the work thus accom- 
plished brings on a better state. This volume can- 
not but do good. As a worthy effort to call atten- 
tion to a most important subject, it deserves a fav- 
orable reception. As a clear and impressive por- 
trayal of the folly it exposes, it cannot but quicken 
every reader's conscience and effort against it, and 
strengthen the influences that are needed to check 
and diminish it. M. Valentine. 

Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa. 



THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 

/^~\NE of the commonest sins of the times is pro- 
^-^ fanity. It is but telling the truth, to confess 
that it has become so prevalent as to deserve the 
diatinction of being called a national characteristic 
— a distinction of which certainly no pure-minded cit- 
izen can feel proud, and which cannot but awaken his 
fears, if he seriously believes what history has often 
• proved, that a nation lacking in moral principle has 
no trustworthy guarantee of perpetuity. It is not, 
and, arguing from his very nature and the relations 
which man sustains to Him, it cannot be secure 
against ultimate extinction, however prosperous it 
may have been for centuries, without a reverent 
recognition, and an actual practical as well as 
merely official or formal acknowledgment of the 
Supreme Being. 

An intelligent, observing foreigner need not 
travel far inward from the ocean-line on either side 
of this western continent, before he will be sur- 
prised at the extent to which this vice is indulged 
(17) 



18 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

by our people. Among the first sounds that he 
will hear, when he steps upon our shores, will be 
voices profaning the 

" One dread Name 
Which he who deepest graves within his heart 
Is wisest, though the world may call him 'fool/ M 

Strolling along the quays of the port where he 
has arrived, and hearing the grossest blasphemies 
and irreverent expressions from gangs of stevedores 
handling the cargoes of the vessels lying there, and 
squads of loungers idly looking on, and from the 
little, ragged "Arabs," roaming here and there, in- 
tent upon mischief or petty larceny, and the fre- 
quenters of the dens, fetid store-rooms, junk-shops, 
and sailors' boarding-houses of " Front" or "Water 
streets," he may find some relief for his wounded 
sense of reverence for the Supreme Being, in the 
hope that once away from such surroundings, and 
in the presence of high-toned people, he will not 
thus be made to suffer. But further observation 
proves his hope to have been delusive. If, from the 
vicinity of the piers of the seaport, business led him 
into the counting-houses of mercantile life, or the 
more finely appointed offices of commercial ex- 
change, he would frequently hear the most offensive 
profanity there. If intent upon social recreation, 
and in company with some friend, he visited the 
club-rooms of the metropolis, he would hear it 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 19 

there. If, craving amusement, he went to the 
theatre, he would hear it there — about the doors, in 
the lobby, in the pit, on the boards, and playing 
the eaves-dropper, behind the curtains, or in the 
green-room. If he mingled with the crowd, jost- 
ling together on some steamboat and making for 
some shady grove, to enjoy a day's respite from 
hard labor and breathe the pure air of the country, 
he would hear it there. If, expecting to post him- 
self on the extent and resources of our proud 
country, he hurried to the grand depot, and on one 
or another of our great routes of travel, hied north- 
ward, or southward, or eastward, or westward, he 
would scarcely find a station at which the train 
stopped, in a trip of but a hundred miles, where he 
would not be compelled to hear the blatant voice of 
profanity. If, halting for a day or two for sight- 
seeing at one of our popular watering places, he 
happened at the bar, or in the billiard-parlor, or in 
the bowling-alley, he would hear it there. If he 
attended the trials of speed, vulgarly called " races," 
which usually constitute one of the recreations pro- 
vided for the patrons of such establishments, he 
would hear it there. If, on his trips in any direc- 
tion, he " stopped over" at one of our manufactur- 
ing centres, to take notes of our advancement in 
the practical arts, he would not listen long to the hum 
of machinery without hearing it above the whirl 
and twirl of a thousand spindles. If he traveled 



20 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

inland thousands of miles, till he reached the far- 
thest longitudinal line touched by the hardy pioneer, 
he would hear it there — he would observe, that of 
the few memorials of the more civilized region from 
which he migrated, there was none that the fron- 
tiersman held more tenaciously than the irrational 
vice of profanity. 

There are but few places on this American con- 
tinent which such a stranger might feel inclined to 
visit, where he would not hear either an oath so 
shocking as almost to curdle his blood, or some in- 
considerate mention of his Maker's name, which, re- 
sembling profanity very closely, is evidently of the 
same paternity, the devil. The blasphemy of 
swearers tingling thus in his ears wherever he 
moved, it could hardly be denied that we deserved 
his irony, if, on leaving our shores homewards, he 
were heard to say, ""A Christian people, this! Yet 
everywhere the name 

" '* * that seraphs tremble at, is hung 

Disgracefully on every trirler's tongue !'" * 

Assuming that such an observing foreigner had 
mingled freely with our people, while on his tour 
of our country, he could tell only what he had seen 
and heard, if, on reaching his home, he said that 
this low vice is not peculiar here to any single class, 
but is more or less common to all classes. 

*Cowper's Expostulation, lines 662-663. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 21 

Though comparatively rare, yet now and then 
instances become known, and are blazoned before 
the world by the press — always so ready, and some- 
times manifestiDg a degree of anxiety, to publish 
their delinquencies — even of ministers of the gos- 
pel, who, notwithstanding the sacredness of their 
profession and the holy character of the work to 
which they have been solemnly ordained, are guilty 
of profanity. We mean not the needless and often 
offensively familiar reiteration of the name of the 
Supreme Being, which is heard too frequently from 
some pulpits, and to which, in another chapter, we 
shall call the attention of the reader, as amounting 
to profanity, but actual swearing in conversation. 
Happily for the church, and the success of the 
cause she represents, the instances of such minis- 
terial immorality are not many. The few of which 
the world is now and then informed by the Argus- 
eyed press, are quite too many, in a vocation one 
of the very first qualifications for which is that the 
candidate, or incumbent, should be a man of clean 
speech. 

It is, too, a melancholy admission, which the con- 
scientious chronicler of the present times cannot 
honestly refuse to make, that there are hundreds — 
to many readers of these pages it would not seem 
extravagant to say thousands — of members of our 
various churches throughout the land who are guilty 
of this vice. Some are known to be habitual swear- 



22 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

ers, while others, profaning the holy name now and 
then in a fit of passion, or under irritating circum- 
stances, are tolerated and often excused, and thus 
encouraged by their fellow-members of the same 
church to whom their sin is known, by the soft plea 
that they only do it occasionally. That an avowed 
Christian can, either habitually or only " occasion- 
ally," profane His name to whose service, in the 
presence perhaps of hundreds of witnesses to the im- 
pressive act, he once formally and solemnly conse- 
crated himself, and yet retain his Christian char- 
acter, is a fiction which, for the safety of the 
swearing members of their flocks, pastors should 
more frequently and boldly expose from their pul- 
pits. 

It is more than inconsistency — it is real sacrilege 
— for a Christian professor, known to be given to the 
crime of blasphemy, to approach His table and par- 
take of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper without 
any contrition for his sin, as a pre-requisite to the 
privilege or duty. Unlike the Corinthian sacri- 
lege — making the supper a scene of riotous revelry 
— yet, if it be at all probable that the awful doom 
"eating and drinking damnation,"* which St. Paul 
predicated of the Christian bacchanals of his day, 
can be incurred in any manner by any one in the 
present age, surely one way of risking it is, to per- 

* 1 Cor. xi. 29. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 23 

sist in the habit of using profane language, notwith- 
standing one's profession of piety, and then unre- 
pentingly, yet with seeming solemnity and meek- 
ness, approach the sacramental board, from time to 
time, to "show the Lord's death till he come." 
The lips and tongue which can so often, and so 
easily, ungratefully, and boldly abuse His name 
who " so loved the world, that He gave His only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life,"* can- 
not " worthily" touch the symbols of that Saviour's 
sacrificial sufferings and death. If the least irrev- 
erence towards their ideal gods w^as a sufficient 
reason to the heathens of antiquity for warning the 
offender away from their superstitious ceremonies, 
surely it could not be thought an unreasonable 
thing, while it would contribute much to make the 
reputation of the church more secure, if profane 
professors of the Christian faith in the present gos- 
pel age were utterly refused admission to this holy 
ordinance. 

The church discipline which takes cognizance of 
other sins against the decalogue — that would ex- 
communicate an adulterer, or suspend a thief, but 
w^hich tolerates an habitual swearer without so 
much as a word of remonstrance against his vice, 
cannot be sustained by the plea that it can contem- 
plate not the secret and unobserved, but only the 

*Johiiiii. 16. 



24 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

open or overt transgressions of its subjects ; since 
there is not one of the ten laws constituting the 
decalogue, which, when violated at all, is, as a rule, 
violated more openly, daringly, and shamelessly 
than the third of the Sinai tic code. 

Nor can it soften in the least the ugly, forbidding 
features of the act or habit of swearing, to call it 
by any milder name than it deserves. It is too 
highly criminal to be classed with a thousand other 
less guilty acts that men commit as a mere "folly." 
It is too gross a violation of too solemn a law, to 
admit of any attempt to lessen its magnitude by 
softly calling it a " foible." As it argues not mere 
moral imbecility in the swearer, but real, strong 
hostility to the will and law of God, it amounts to 
a contradiction of the truth to mildly term it, a 
"weakness" or "infirmity." As it evinces in the 
sinner not only such moral weakness as disquali- 
fies him without divine aid for religious duty, but 
real power to do evil — real distinct power — it does 
not adequately define the offence to call it a 
"frailty." It is more than an "error" — a term 
predicable of many a deviation from the line of 
strict conduct, which we can much more easily ex- 
cuse than than that of common swearing ; and more 
than a "fault" — a word used as expressing some- 
thing lacking, which holds true even of the most 
finished human character; and more than a " mis- 
take," a term applicable to a thousand human acts 
which contract no guilt whatever. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 25 

This unchristian habit of profaning the holy name 
of God, of which be it here recorded to the shame 
of so many church-members of the present day that 
they are guilty, is not the innoxious or harmless 
thing — the mere peccadillo — which, by too many 
persons, disposed to indulge too amiable a view of 
the vice, is implied in their use of the half-apologetic 
terms already noticed, as describing it. As com- 
mitted against God it is a sin — a terrible sin; as a 
violation of human law it is a crime — a shameless 
crime; — a sin and crime which, if the fact be well 
weighed that it is the only one prohibited in the 
decalogue the commission of which the Almighty 
solemnly protests shall make the sinner guilty before 
Him, can hardly be estimated as being less enor- 
mous than adultery, or murder. No feeling of deli- 
cacy, therefore, on her part, or fear that her inter- 
ests may suffer if she took disciplinary cognizance 
of this crime, should induce the church to wink at, 
or allow, its indulgence by any — not even the least 
known or influential, of her members. The disci- 
pline which permits any member of a Christian 
church — and the shame is but the greater if he be 
a prominent member — who is an habitual swearer, 
to remain in undisputed, intimate fellowship with 
God's people, is not deserving of the name: it is 
the merest farce. 

That it is indulged only by the immoral poor, or 
the abandoned — those whom popular judgment has 
2 



26 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

consigned to the lowest stratum of society, as if 
it were a necessary, or an inseparable accompani- 
ment of the imagined degradation of poverty, or a 
plant indigenous to the soil only of low life — is a 
mistake which only one can make who has had but 
little to do with the higher classes. While it neither 
lessens their shame nor excuses their guilt, to know 
that others, far above them in the social scale, do 
the same unlawful things Avhich have brought them 
to disgrace, yet, down in the slums of the " Five 
Points,"* or of " Alaska St."f there are abandoned 
characters who, in respect of the guilt of coarse 
vulgar swearing, might look squarely and unblink- 
ingly in the face many of the higher circles of so- 
ciety, and without fear of successful contradiction, 
truthfully claim to be their peers. J 

Not only is the shameless courtesan whom society 
scowls out of its parlors, slamming the door in her 
face as being too degraded to be allowed fellowship 
with the reputable; nor the blatant, swaggering 

* New York City, 
f Philadelphia. 

$ " Would that society were always consistent in its 
estimate of criminality, and did not mete out to crime a 
measure of contempt and punishment shamefully irre- 
spective of deterring circumstances of birth, education, 
associates, etc ., in one case, and in another of propensi- 
ties and temptations too strong for the weak moral and 
intellectual powers, habits, etc., of such unfortunates as 
fill our prisons. But no, these last, for whom physical 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 27 

sailor, strolling along the piers and creeping into 
the low places of our seaports ; nor the poor, crazed 
inebriate, reeling along the street, an object of 
merriment to thoughtless youths, and of terror to 
nervous ladies; nor the sooty, begrimed miner, 
whose dangerous employments should ever keep 
him mindful of eternity, the gravest problem man 
can attempt to solve ; nor the daring, reckless rail- 
road employe whose next rash step may plunge him 
into its mysteries ; nor the actor whose morals, for 
the only reason often that he is an actor, are so 
generally questioned — not only are such sinners, 
from whom, on meeting them incidentally on the 
street, the more respectable, gathering their fine 
apparel about them, move on with averted faces, as 
if the least contact with the moral lepers might pol- 
lute them, guilty of this detestable vice. 

It is as well known to the reader as to the writer 
of this page, that there are many of the so-called 
"upper classes," who, though they would redden 
with indignation if you but hinted that they were 
not " gentlemen," or " ladies," can, nevertheless, 
and do, from time to time, without a change of 
countenance or tinge of shame — in a manner as dis- 
organization, parents, society, circumstances, in fine edu- 
cation, have done so little, are generally looked npon with 
Pharisaic detestation only, while pity is unjustly reserved 
for the criminals of more * respectable connexions.' " — A 
German Philosopher. 



28 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

reputable as it is deliberate — " take the name of 
the Lord their God in vain." The number of men 
is not small who, though they affect superiority of 
position, or great consequence in the social world, 
and aim, hence, to distinguish themselves and their 
families from inferior people, by their handsome 
homes, their stylish apparel, and their "turn-outs," 
yet, by their language so far degrade themselves, 
that, if some ragged, filthy outcast appeared at their 
door, and, on the ground alone of equality of moral, 
or rather immoral character, claimed the right to 
enter their drawing-room and fellowship with them, 
it would be a monstrous denial of justice on their 
part to order him away. 

The mere hint here of the fact, that there are 
many living instances of gross profanity in high 
life, is sufficient to suggest to the reader, if his 
acquaintanceship reaches up to the departments of 
our state and national governments, the names of 
men almost of world-wide reputation, of whom, by 
reason of their eminent position, the Christian mind 
of the nation expects at least the moral decorum of 
a gentleman. It is not a secret which, for the 
moral interests, if not for the good name of the 
nation as a whole, we need lake any special pains 
to conceal, that some of our most distinguished 
statesmen are among the most profane men of the 
age. Too large — quite too large a proportion of 
members of our respective state legislatures, and 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 29 

of our national congress — men who would indig- 
nantly resent, if they heard it, any contemptuous 
mention of their own name, and claim to be too 
honorable to allow the name of a friend to be disre- 
spectfully mentioned in their hearing — men who 
would not feel themselves complimented, and would 
at once set you down as an ignorant, uncultured 
rustic, if in your address to them, as correspondents, 
you wrote plain "Mr." and not "Hon." — men 
whom the people have elevated to offices of grave 
responsibility to make their laws, to originate and 
execute measures looking to the development of the 
moral as well as the material interests of the com- 
monwealth, or of the nation — are shamelessly guilty 
of this vice. 

It is respectfully submitted to their sense of the 
fitness of things — a faculty which the people who 
make them legislators expect them to cultivate to 
the highest degree, and without which it would be 
sheer burlesque to call them wise, and the veriest 
foolishness to expect them to become successful re- 
presentatives — that a man who has himself no re- 
spect for the laws of his Maker, one of the plainest 
of which solemnly forbids profanity, is not morally 
competent to make laws for his fellow-men. Lack- 
ing, thus, in moral competency for the responsible 
office of a law-maker, though his other qualifications 
be never so varied, real, and eminent, yet his con- 
stituents cannot feel that their interests are perfectly 



30 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

safe in his hands. It is an insult to common sense 
to allege, that immorality is not a disqualification 
for an office whose duties affect the welfare of a 
state, or nation. This is to destroy the distinctions 
between right and wrong — distinctions on the con- 
scientious observance of which depends the very 
existence of good government. 

To those who thoughtfully consider the intimate 
relations that obtain between the religion and the 
prosperity of a people, it has become a grave ques- 
tion, whether or not one whose repeated gross im- 
pieties prove him to be destitute, we will not say of 
peculiarly Christian, but of the common universally 
acknowledged principles of morality, should be in- 
vested with such important functions as belong to a 
legislator. It is incredible to them, that the senator 
or representative who habitually violates the first 
duty of man, reverence for the Supreme Being, is 
entitled by any legitimate construction of language, 
to be called a "man of integrity." If only to men 
of this type should be entrusted the guardianship of 
interests that affect millions of persons — a high- 
sounding, very moral sentiment, so frequently heard 
from pulpit, press, and platform, that we expect the 
common-place from the lips of every orator who rises 
up to enlighten us on public affairs — it seems some- 
what singular to the best classes of our citizen- 
voters, that in the popular estimate of what consti- 
tutes integrity, there is so little if any consideration 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 31 

at all of the moral unsoundness , the evident, actual 
wickedness, which is evinced by the known profanity 
of many candidates for office. 

Purity of speech is at once the first and truest 
sign of moral integrity. A man of this stamp 
guards his lips against the utterance of foul lan- 
guage, as well as his hands against dishonest deal- 
ing. His words are as unexceptionable as his acts. 
Habituating himself to the use of language becom- 
ing the character he wears, he is careful to offend 
no one by the least indecent word, while from actual 
blasphemy, or common swearing, he recoils with an 
abhorrence that plainly evinces the sincerity and 
depth of his moral sense. No brilliancy of talent 
in debate, nor capacity for oratory, nor political 
sagacity, nor profound knowledge of political econ- 
omy, nor high social rank, nor mere loyal partisan- 
ship, can be accepted by those who have given this 
subject the thought which it deserves, as a satisfac- 
tory substitute for the morality of which the first 
and simplest sign is respect for the name of God. 
Hence the feeling which, we are glad here to record, 
is growing stronger throughout the land, that in- 
stead of elevating to office brilliant bad men, it is 
much wiser and safer, in order to the welfare and 
perpetuity of the nation, to elect men of good 
morals, though, aside from their known morality, 
they have no claim upon the admiration of the 
world, except that they are full of good, practical, 



32 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

common sense. In face of the sneers of a partisan 
press, the writer will scratch from his ticket, at any 
election, though it be but an election for Justice of 
the Peace, the name of any candidate who is known 
to be an habitual swearer ; for he cannot be con- 
vinced by any sort of logic, that an office-holder 
who can coolly and deliberately call upon his Maker 
to "damn" his constituents will conscientiously 
labor to do them any good. 

It is not without some misgiving, whether these 
strictures on the profanity of some of our public 
men, if they should fall under their eye, will be 
commended by them. Be this as it may, " a sober, 
second thought" on this vice, as practiced by them, 
must lead them to about the same conclusions that 
the writer has ventured to express. If they wo.uld 
but always observe towards their Maker the same 
rule of decorum which the dignity of the senate, or 
assembly, requires them to observe towards each 
other, the faithful chronicler of the times would be 
spared the mortification of protesting that, by rea- 
son of their immorality, they are hardly fit to 
represent a respectable constituency. Should one 
of them utter an indecent word, or profane exple- 
tive, in the course of a heated discussion on some 
subject commanding their attention while in official 
session, he would instantly be called to order, and 
made to apologize for his ill-spoken words. Such 
a transgressor of the proprieties of the time and 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 83 

place would be compelled to confess his sin as pub- 
licly as he committed it. Not less, but infinitely 
more offensive to His majesty by whom "Kings 
reign, and princes decree justice"* is the swear- 
ing which they are known to indulge when absent 
from the hallowed enclosure of legislative halls, 
where they would not dare to utter it. Even were 
these eminent law-makers atheists in their religious 
belief, if atheists can be supposed to have any relig- 
ious belief at all, so that they did not regard pro- 
fanity as being criminal for its impiety, yet the 
single consideration of their official character, as 
representing a people who do most religiously be- 
lieve in the existence of God, ought to have weight 
enough to persuade them to abstain from a vice so 
offensive to the best classes of their constituents. 
The sentiment of the poet Shelley deserves their 
serious thought, who, though they affect political 
greatness, yet belittle as well their office as them- 
selves by indulging so humiliating a vice as is pro- 
fanity — 

" Man who man wonlcl be, 
Must rule the empire of himself. ' ' 

There are times when the enormity of this vice 
impresses us almost beyond expression. It is with 
mingled feelings of pity, pain, and wonder, for in- 
stance, that we hear, now and then, the aged swear. 

*Prov. viii. 15. 
2* 



o4 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

If men are expected ever to be wise, is it not in old 
age ? The foolishness which some excuse, but none 
can justify, by the plea that it is of youth, is crim- 
inal, indeed, in one whom threescore and ten years, 
or more, have not made a sage in thought, judg- 
ment, and character. Lacking the wisdom which 
presses into service every moment of time in prep- 
aration for eternity, how totally insensible to the 
worth of his immortal soul must that man be, who, 
though there remain to him comparatively but few 
more days of his natural term of life, and through 
whose attenuated body there creeps at times the 
very chill of the grave, yet can coolly and unblush- 
ingly repeat, time and again, the sin which more 
than all others incurs the wrath of the Almighty ! 
There cannot appear to heaven or earth a spectacle 
more melancholy than that of an aged person, in 
whom we expect to see the dignity of man most 
strikingly exemplified, impulsively attempting to 
strengthen his failing voice, and emphasize his bro- 
ken: articulation, in acts of blasphemous utterance. 
Sympathizing with the tremor which the feebleness 
of age occasions in his frame, the trembling of his 
tongue seems like the quivering of the bell of some 
stately ship which, after a long and tedious voyage, 
marked by many a hair-breadth escape from de- 
struction, and with the home-harbor in full view, 
madly plunges at last into the angry sea, to be over- 
whelmed forever. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 35 

No mantle of charity can hide such a portrait of 
human guilt ; its repulsiveness will appear in spite 
of the soft extenuations, or well-meant apologies, 
which may be pleaded for it. Oh, it is sad — very 
sad, thus to hear foul, blasphemous words, such as 
might be found in the vocabularies of the lost, from 
the lips of one who, in the leisure, loneliness and 
privacy of this life's last days, ought to be heard 
humming the idyls of the saved. Natural, and, 
under more encouraging circumstances, very proper 
and becoming, as may be his wish for respect from 
younger persons, because he is old, yet since he 
denies it to himself, it is but little that he can rea- 
sonably expect from others. We are ready to bend 
before virtuous old age. It is "a mild but potent 
magistracy" which it exercises upon our person and 
presence. A good old man need not hint that rev- 
erence is due to him — his grey hair commands it. 
But it is only the most formal regard — a regard not 
unmixed with a feeling of aversion — that Ave can 
accord to a feeble, tottering old man, who can dar- 
ingly attempt to straighten himself, and unblush- 
ingly use his stammering tongue, in acts of blas- 
phemy against his Maker. 

' ' If angels weep, it is at such a sight. ' ' 

Nor is it less painful to hear the verbiage of pro- 
fanity from the lips of childhood. Many, very 
many children and youths of our land are given to 



36 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

this dangerous vice. And this, in face of the many 
Christian agencies by which it is intended and ex- 
pected that they shall be made good and true men 
and women. Everywhere Sunday-schools open 
wide their doors to " gather them in," while volun- 
tary bands of devoted teachers try to educate them 
in the fear of the Lord ; and yet there is scarcely a 
village or hamlet in the land where His name is not 
profaned even by many Sunday-school children. 
This fact proves, not the inefficiency of Sunday- 
school work, since its grand results, in general, are 
too well known to be denied, but that it cannot 
secure its end unless the mind of the young is first 
deeply and thoroughly imbued with a clear practi- 
cal sense of reverence for the Supreme Being. This 
truth is fundamental to all successful religious edu- 
cation and discipline. One of the first things that a 
child should be taught, who is just beginning to 
study his catechism, is veneration for his Maker. 

It is shocking to hear a child sivear. Repeated 
until the act becomes habitual, there will be needed 
no inspired seer to prophesy for him a life of in- 
famy and shame — his easily-learned oaths are an 
earnest of the corrupt fruit he shall bring forth in 
mature life. All the tendencies and aptitudes of 
his bad language pre-advise a career of crime, not 
less unerringly than the index-board upon the high- 
way pre-informs the doubtful traveler of the objec- 
tive point which he is making. Unchecked by his 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 37 

elders, of whom there is none whose authority to 
stop his beginnings of vice is more unquestionable 
than that of his own parents, his native inborn incli- 
nations to evil, gathering strength by indulgence, 
may acquire such momentum that nothing less than 
a miracle of' grace could arrest and prevent him from 
falling into perdition. 

The fact alone of the imperishableness of impres- 
sions acquired in childhood, or of lessons then 
learned, ought to be important enough to put all 
persons who have the care of children, on their 
guard against allowing them to use any word that 
might occasion a blush, or is not strictly proper. In 
the delirium occasioned by fever, good old men have 
been heard using such vile and profane language as 
startled and pained their attendants. But still 
greater was the surprise of their families when, on 
recovering from their illness and being told of w T hat 
they had said, they stated that the expressions they 
used had been learned in childhood ; that, though 
they had not spoken a bad word for many years, 
yet unwittingly they had but proved, in their delir- 
ious state, that the absolute extinguishment of ideas 
and words learned in childhood is simply impossi- 
ble. It is, then, a fearful venture to let a child 
swear. Their permission of the act who can by any 
means prevent it is certainly criminal. 

But what can w T e think of a parent — a father — ■ 
w T ho not only permits, but actually encourages his 



38 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

hoy to sivear? We have heard of such moral mon- 
sters, but were not willing to believe the story of 
their iniquity, except on evidence which was simply 
unquestionable. We have heard of fathers who 
allowed the pet of the household to use profane lan- 
guage, as illustrating his brightness. And not only 
this, but they took occasion, now and then, to ex- 
hibit the pet's "smartness," by prompting him to 
repeat the guilty words in the hearing of friends 
who happened in his presence. That the boy had 
brains, or was " smart," was evident from the fact 
that he could swear. 

What a fearful pastime, a cruel amusement, for 
a father to enjoy, laughing gleefully at the oaths 
which, like other first words of childhood, brokenly 
fall from the guileless lips of his own boy ! Total, 
indeed, must be the depravity which promps a par- 
ent to teach his own little one the monosyllables of 
iniquity, or to discipline him in the practice of crime. 
Far more guilty is his conduct than was the prac- 
tice of the old Indians who flung their offspring into 
the sea, to sink or swim, as strength or feebleness 
determined ; the child that stood the test — floating 
upon the surface — was taken out and cared for as 
being worthy of life, but the little one that sank to 
the bottom was left there, as being unfit to live. 
We pity the Hindoo father who lays down his little 
one in the track of the ponderous temple of Jugger- 
naut, to be crushed to a jelly by its slow-moving 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 39 

wheels, or the Hindoo mother who tosses her babe 
into the Ganges, to be devoured by the monsters 
which infest the sacred river. Horrible as such 
acts appear to minds enlightened by the gospel in 
the knowledge of the only God, and of what con- 
stitutes His true worship, yet to the ignorant, 
heathenish father and mother, they are real acts of 
religious devotion. But of the father in this Chris- 
tian land, who thus educates his children in vice, 
who, instead of using his parental authority and in- 
fluence to curb, uses it more to encourage the evil 
propensities of his fallen nature — propensities which 
need no artificial means to strengthen them, but are 
naturally so headstrong as often to mock the most 
earnest endeavors to govern them — of the father 
who takes pains thus to instruct his boy, not in the 
simple, infantile language of prayer, but in the 
coarse, criminal phraseology of profanity, we can- 
not find language severe enough to express our 
condemnation. The cruelty of such a father is 
more exquisite than that of a cannibal. The bar- 
barous instincts of the latter prompt him to slay a 
child as a sacrifice to his palate ; but the former, 
who poisons the impressible mind of his little one, 
just beginning to talk, with the venom of iniquity 
which cannot but ultimately destroy him if it be 
not neutralized by divine grace, sacrifices him, 
body and soul, to the devil. If the test used by 
the Indian father to determine whether his offspring 



40 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

should live or die ought to be applied, in a case 
like this, there are but few who, considering the 
enormity of the offence which we have described, 
would long remain uncertain as to which should be 
flung into the sea, the cruel father or the innocent 
child. Nor would such an immersion be adminis- 
tered without Christian sanction, since the Master 
himself suggests, not only that it ought to be done, 
but as well how it may be made total, " But whoso 
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in 
me, it w r ere better for him that a mill-stone were 
hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned 
in the depth of the sea."* 

But there is another feature of this common vice, 
of which we have something to say before we close 
this chapter. It is the utter shamelessness with 
which it is usually committed. No vice flaunts 
itself before you with more brazen impudence. The 
slanderer slyly watches for an open ear, an ear lis- 
tening for whispers of scandal from mouths whose 
breath is but the more welcome for its moral offen- 
siveness. Placing his finger over his lips, and with 
a significant head-shake, the slanderer enjoins se- 
crecy as the condition on which he will share w T ith 
you some choice bit of scandal. The thief is too 
cunning to steal before witnesses ; if he is dis- 
covered in his guilty act, it is by the merest acci- 

*Matt. xviii. 6. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 41 

dent. The lecherous creep along the streets, or 
steal to their secret haunts, after sunset : daylight 
is not pleasant to eyes which, even after sundown, 
watchfully peer around to see whether any one is 
observing the guilty errand thev are directing. 
The murderer, shunning the face of others, waits 
for his victim in some secluded place, or seeks him 
when alone ; except when ungovernable passion, 
always blind to surrounding circumstances, precipi- 
tates the fatal act in the presence of others, it is 
with studied movements that he anticipates his op- 
portunity, preferring often to shoot, or stab, or brain 
his victim, under cover of darkness, or of the dim- 
ness of a lantern, emitting just light enough to let him 
discover that there are but two parties who can see 
his bloody act, himself and the doomed one. Night, 
too, is the time for the drunkard's revelries, ashamed 
of which he slinks at day-dawn, into some unfre- 
quented corner, or climbs some loft, unobservedly 
to sleep on their ill effects. There is not one of 
the long, dark category of sins against God or 
man, which is committed as publicly, boldly, and 
undauntedly, as profanity. 

If it be not the merit of modesty which other 
sinners evince, who seek retirement for the indul- 
gence of their easily-besetting vices, it is, at ail 
events, such a conscious sense of guiltiness as would 
make them ashamed to be seen practicing them 
publicly, or in broad daylight. But your reckless, 



42 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

foul-mouthed swearer shows neither the natural 
modesty which makes a man blush who has not yet 
become a hardened criminal, if he has thoughtlessly 
uttered an improper word, nor any other evidence 
of shame whatever. He affects no politeness ; he 
seeks no privacy ; he cares for no one's feelings ; 
he has no respect for God, or man. There is but 
one besides himself, whom his swearing pleases, and 
of all known beings there is but one whom it honors 
— one whose acquaintance, if he but appeared to 
him to pat him on the back for his shameless im- 
piety, he w T ould, doubtless, decline to cultivate — the 
devil. 

Such reader, is the vice of profanity, as we have 
observed it at home — in our own land. Though it 
might not be consistent for him to upbraid us for it, 
yet he would but state a fact which we could not 
consistently deny, if almost any foreigner should in- 
form us that we have the reputation abroad of being 
a profane people. It would not take a tourist from 
our own country, intent upon ascertaining w r hat 
other peoples think of us, very long to discover that 
they do not admire us for our universal propriety of 
speech. It is related, that some innocent Russians 
mistook an American traveller for u a clergyman, 
because he was not heard to swear, all other Amer- 
icans being supposed to be addicted to the habit." 
What a shame is this! What a blot upon our 
national character ! Are we a Christian people ? 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 43 

We would deserve this distinction were it not so 
true a faet that profanity is one of our commonest 
vices. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 

TF the foreigner whom we have supposed, in the 
-*- foregoing chapter, as making a tour of our coun- 
try, and as being surprised at the extent to which 
this vice obtains among our people, were an English- 
man, on following him homeward, we should soon 
find that we had not arrived among a people alto- 
gether innocent of bad language. Common swear- 
ing is certainly not less, if not more characteristic 
of Christian(?) England than of America. An at- 
tempt to ascertain, so accurately that the fairness of 
the comparison would be unquestionable, which 
nation exceeds the other in the extent to which the 
habit obtains among the masses, the intensity of the 
foul verbiage used, and the shamelessness of the 
offenders, would hardly subserve any practical pur- 
pose, while the credit that either nation might claim 
as being less profane than the other, would scarcely 
be worth a groat. Strolling along the high-ways 
and by-ways of her rural districts, and into the 
lanes, courts, alleys and low places of her cities and 
boroughs, an American, with open ears as well as 
eyes, might not discover any appreciable difference 
in the amount of profanity in England, as compared 

( 44> 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 45 

with his own country; yet he would soon notice, 
doubtless, this curious difference in kind, that the 
average Briton usually " draws his strongest epithets 
from the language of crime, and his most offensive 
similes from sewers and filthy objects," while "the 
American generally apostrophizes his Maker." If 
there be any difference, then, in their guiltiness, it- 
follows, that the American is more criminal than 
the British swearer — a distinction which is cer- 
tainly not very flattering. 

Since from their press, if they have any, we can 
usually learn the moral as well as the material 
status of a people, it would not be libeling the 
English to reproduce, if Ave had space enough on 
these pages, their own voluminous and decisive tes- 
timony as lately published to the world, to the pre- 
valence of this crime in the mother country. The 
columns of the Telegraph — a leading metropolitan 
journal — having been opened to the public, during 
the summer of 1879, for the ventilation of English 
manners and habits, were soon filled with such cor- 
respondence, touching this vice, as could not but 
convince the warmest admirer of England that, of 
whatever else she might be an example to less pre- 
tentious peoples, yet she is not a model of purity of 
language. From every direction letters accumu- 
lated under the hands of its editorial corps, depre- 
cating its general indulgence, and begging that some 
means more effectual than any that had yet been 



46 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

tried might be suggested and adopted to prevent it. 
A glance at the issues of the Telegraph during the 
months of July and August of the year above 
named, would be enough to satisfy the reader that 
the English mind was deeply agitated on the matter 
of this shameful indulgence. A single extract from 
the missive of a correspondent, hailing from London 
itself — one of the proudest as well as oldest cities 
of the world — may serve as an illustration of the 
righteous indignation with which some, at least, of 
her Majesty's subjects had been observing it: "I 
would venture to say that there is not a delicate ear 
that is not daily outraged by the unspeakable blas- 
phemies and hideous indecencies of London lan- 
guage, particularly on Sunday, when lounging, loaf- 
ing, and idling are prevalent : but it says very little 
for our education and its "refining influence when the 
charms of nature — the trees, the flowers, and the 
pleasant calm of the river Thames — cannot check 
this trick of foul talking which has so grown from 
bad to worse that ladies are compelled to abandon 
the river altogether rather than expose themselves 
to the indignities that are unintentionally forced 
upon them." 

This language seems to imply that the vice of 
swearing is confined to the lower classes of English 
society. Nevertheless, in England as in America, 
if it is not common to, yet it is not unfrequently 
practiced as well in high as in low life. A for- 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 47 

cible proof of this fact is afforded by an incident 
which was told the Boston correspondent of the 
Hartford Courant, several years since, by the late 
Senator Sumner. "We were talking," said he, 
" about the profanity of a very distinguished Amer- 
ican statesman, not now living. Mr. Sumner, (who 
never swore himself), said, 'Well, I have never 
heard him swear severely; but as a rule, nobody 
swears in my presence. The greatest mortification 
I ever received in my life, in this way, was when I 
was at a breakfast abroad with Lord Brougham. 
We had sat clown at the breakfast table, when some- 
body brought a newspaper to Lord Brougham. It 
contained a personal attack upon him. The article 
was marked, and he read it through. When he 
had completed it, he began a volley of the most 
scathing oaths that I ever heard fall from the lips 
of man. There was no limit to the curses he rained 
upon the head of the author of this piece. I was 
shocked and stricken dumb,' said Mr. Summer. 
'The. only other occupant of the table, except Lord 
Brougham and myself, was Brougham's mother. 
She sat at the head, a venerable and courtly lady, 
with an elegance and grace of manner that I never 
saw excelled. I dared not look at her for some 
moments, but when I ventured to turn my eyes in 
that direction, I found not a muscle of her face was 
moved. She was as calmly unconscious of what 
her son was saying as if he w T as talking in Arabic. 



48 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

The breeze soon blew over, and we had a very en- 
joyable breakfast.'"* 

It must be confessed, that there is reason for the 
satires which, from time to time in their history, 
have been spoken and written, and even acted " on 
the boards" — satires on the professed Christianity 
of such profane countries as England and America. 
In a work which appeared some sixty or seventy 
years ago, entitled, " Letters of a Hindoo Rajah" 
and was subsequently translated into our language 
by a Miss Hamilton, that swarthy prince and rep- 
resentative of heathen morality, of an unevangelized 
country and an unenlightened government, remarks, 
with all the apparent simplicity of an innocent, un- 
suspecting stranger, that " the English are a most 
religious nation, since they so continually call upon 
the Supreme Being." 

About the year eighteen hundred and fifteen, the 
profanity of the Anglo-Saxon tongue was actually 
the subject of theatrical representation, and, too, in 
a country which is popularly supposed to be crowded 
with a very heathenish people — China. A tourist, 
w T ho w r as on a visit to the Celestials, passed some 
time in Canton. "In the theatrical exhibitions 
which occurred daily in the streets of that large 
city," he observed "a Chinese actor" playing the 

* As this story has already been given to the world by 
the press, there can be no impropriety in reproducing it 
on these pages. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 49 

Englishman. And " the prominent feature of the 
character," as mimicked by him, was "the light 
or profane use of the name of the Almighty. In 
short, the Englishman appeared as a mere swearer."* 
In the periodicals of the day public attention was 
called to this severe rebuke of a vice which, down 
to the present day, seems only to have mocked all 
efforts to correct it. The facts which constituted 
the staple of the Chinese burlesque were sincerely 
deplored by thoughtful Englishmen. The play 
which the wounded tourist witnessed "on the 
boards" of a heathenish .theatre, illustrated more 
plainly than satisfactorily the ill repute into which 
the profanity of his countrymen had brought his 
beloved England. 

It was a severe sarcasm which one of her own 
gifted sons, who, if his moral character had but 
equalled his brilliant genius, would have been no less 
admired by the Christian than he has ever been by 
the un-Christian world, once penned, touching the 
naturalness of this vice to the moral soil of his own 
country. In his longest poem he depicts one of 
his heroes whom he calls "a noble fellow," as en- 
gaged in the thickest of a battle and uttering, at the 
same instant, the common form of oath which we 
need not here re-produce ; and then he adds 



* Boston reprint of The Christian Observer, London, 
1819. Vol. xviii., pp. 77, 78. 
3 



50 THE FOLLY OF PROFANIT1 . 

« # * * * those syllables intense, 
The nucleus of England's eloquence." 

It is now, we believe, more than a century, since 
the pure, pious, modest and unassuming poet, Cow- 
per, commanded the admiration of the entire liter- 
ary and religious world. It is not the least praise 
that can be bestowed upon his genius, to remark, 
that, of " the thoughts that breathe, and words that 
burn," which it inspired him to present to an appre- 
ciative public in measures whose rhythm is as pleas- 
ing as the sentiments to which it responds, not the 
least welcome — to them, at all events, who value 
morality as the highest excellence of a people — are 
the periods in which, with a most trenchant pen, he 
scores the sins, follies, foibles, and ill-manners of 
his countrymen. A poet of his intensely religious 
nature and sensitive temperament could not well fail 
to excoriate as it deserves a vice for the indulgence 
of which the moral philosopher is not living who 
could suggest an excuse so reasonable as to com- 
mand universal assent. Hence the frequent ironical 
allusions to profanity in his poems. Graphically 
picturing the bad habits prevailing in the merry 
land of his birth, it would not at all lessen our 
appreciation of his merit, as a poet-historian, to 
know that he meant to rebuke not only his own but 
also our people, even at so early a period of our 
history as 1783, when he w r rote, — 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 51 

" Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound 
The cheek-distending oath, not to be prais'd 
As ornamental, musical, polite : 
Like those which modern senators employ, 
Whose oath is rhet'rick, and who swear for fame!'** 

For manifesting less veneration for the Supreme 
Being than the unenlightened natives themselves of 
the far-off land alluded to, Cowper travestied such 
of his profane countrymen as happened there, in 
these smooth lines : 

" A Persian, humble servant of the sun, 
Who, though devout, yet bigotry had none, 
Hearing a lawyer, grave in his address, 
With adjurations ev'ry word impress, 
Suppos'd the man a bishop, or at least, 
God's name so much upon his lips, a priest ! 
Bow'cl at the close with all his graceful airs, 
And begg'd an int'rest in his frequent pray'rs."f 

It is a query which, for the little practical good 
that would result, it would hardly be worth while 
to seek for such data as could enable the inquirer . 
to answer truthfully, whether or not there is more 
swearing indulged in the English than in any other 
spoken language. No one holds that it is peculiar 
to the Anglo-Saxon, while to one not of sufficient 
polyglot attainments to justify a positive deliver- 
ance on the subject, we may reasonably deny the 
ight simply to say, that it is more common to this 

* The Task, Book IV., lines 487-491. 
f Conversation, lines 67-74. 



52 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

than to any other tongue. It may be alleged, that 
the English is of a more flexible nature than any 
other known language, and therefore more suscep- 
tible to such an abuse of the gift of speech as is 
profanity — a theory which we are not competent 
either to endorse or to deny, since our philological 
acquirements do not include a knowledge of the 
genius, structure, and possibilities of all known 
languages. Or the theory may be suggested, more 
jestingly than seriously, that English-m<ro is more 
depraved than man as known by any other national 
prefix ; hence the remarkable ease and fluency with 
which he rolls out blasphemies against his Maker — 
a suggestion which might be accepted, did not the 
scriptural doctrine of total depravity, not of a frac- 
tion, but of the entire race of human kind exist. 

Yarious and more witty, perhaps, than philosoph- 
ical, as may be the answers given to the query 
above stated — answers so different as to leave the 
mind undecided as to which is the true one — yet it 
is not uncertain that the vile, and it is not too se- 
vere an adjective to add infernal, art of profanity is 
known and practiced as well by other as by Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples. Indeed, if the statements 
made in the correspondence, before referred to, and 
by a writer who subscribes himself, u A Wanderer 
in Many Lands" be true, we whose ears are 
almost daily assailed with such oaths and blasphe- 
mies as make us sorry that the English tongue is so 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 53 

flexible as to admit of such an abuse, are as yet 
comparatively ignorant of the fearful extent to 
which it is possible for this vice to develop itself in 
man. u English blasphemy," says he, " can stand 
no comparison, either for intensity of purpose or 
ingenuity of diction, with that which streams in 
uninterrupted flow from the mouths of Italians or 
Spaniards, Russians or Roumanians. It is notori- 
ous that Spaniards of both sexes and every social 
class scarcely pronounce a sentence" without intro- 
ducing some profane invocation, or expletive. 

To corroborate these facts touching European 
profanity, the polyglot postillion whom Dickens* 
happened on in Italy may be summoned as a wit- 
ness. Angered that he had to wait an hour for his 
horses, he devoted the interval to swearing, using 
what seemed like a compendium of the profanity of 
all modern Europe. He swore " sometimes Chris- 
tian oaths, sometimes Pagan oaths." Sometimes 
he swore "a long compound oath," beginning with 
the language of Christian peoples and merging 
gradually into Pagan jargon. Having driven for 
travelers from about all the nations of Europe, 
and being an apt scholar, to be able thus to epitom- 
ize their profanity seemed to him to be quite an 
enviable distinction. 

The vice, however, is not indulged by all people 

* Pictures from Italy. 



54 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

on .earth — so far, at least, as it involves the bold, 
direct, and unblushing abuse of the Divine name. 
There are several exceptions which deserve special 
mention. In response to inquiries made of him by 
the writer, a friend*, whose statements are unques- 
tionable, since he was "to the manor born," and 
spent his youth among that grand people, and has 
always cultivated the deepest interest in them, 
though now and for many years an American citizen, 
remarks as follows, concerning the Germans : — 
"There is 'probably no language in which more 
fearful imprecations are possible than the German. 
Its marvellous flexibility, and the consequent ease 
of combining words, and thus of forging the most 
terrible sledge-hammer-like maledictions, are truly 
surprising. Yet it is a fact that the German nation, 
as such, is not given to profanity. The vulgar use 
of God's holy name, so painfully prevalent in our 
land, is not common in the ' Vaterland' Adepts as 
many of her sons among us have become in that 
direction, yet this unenviable proficiency is certainly 
owing to their present surroundings ; they have not 
learned it at home. There the irreverent use of 
God's name creates a universal shudder, and fre- 
quently meets with instant and merited rebuke. 
A striking illustration of this fact was furnished at 
a royal banquet of Frederick the Great. This 
prince had acquired from his French associates the 

*Aug. C. Wedekind, D. D., New York City. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 5o 

disgraceful and degrading habit of profane swear- 
ing. On the occasion referred to, when a large 
atheistic and scoffing element was present, the King 
was profusely profane. One of his guests was his 
trusty General Ziethen, who was not only brave in 
the field, hut also loyal to the King of Heaven. 
He was deeply grieved at the unldngly behavior of 
his master. Rising from his seat at the table, and 
bowing respectfully to the King, he said, in sub- 
stance, 'Your majesty is aware, that, with due 
deference to your majesty's will, I have ever ren- 
dered you such service as I was able to perform. 
My sword has ever been drawn in defence of your 
majesty's rights and interests, without a murmur. 
But I cannot sit quietly by and hear the name of my 
Lord Christ thus irreverently bandied about at this 
table. May it please your majesty !' Amid a death- 
like silence of the company, the brave old veteran 
took his seat. The King was visibly moved by the 
heroic conduct of his noble officer, and, taking him 
afterward into his private apartment, he acknowl- 
edged his fault, begged the General's pardon, and 
promised never to wound his feelings thus again. 

"The higher classes of Germans eschew this vice as 
odious and detestable, whilst the masses, at most, 
indulge in meaningless phrases expressive of malev- 
olent wishes, such as i geh zum Schinderf 'dicli soil 
der Kuchuk holenf and others of like character. 
Of course, when rage gets the better of reason; 



56 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

when Luther's ' Souf-TeufeV gets in, the ' Flug- 
TeufeV comes out. But these are bacchanalian ex- 
hibitions — ulcers on the general body of the people. 
The substantial facts are as above indicated." 

Nor was profanity known in heathenish India till 
it was introduced by immoral foreigners. In sup- 
port of this statement is the incident related of that 
distinguished missionary pioneer, John Scudder, 
D. D., who did more for that benighted country, as 
a herald of the gospel, than any other man that 
ever set foot upon its soil. He had been laboring 
for the Master some twenty-five years, and for the 
first time since he had left it, w r as on a visit to his 
native land. On board the vessel that was bringing 
him homewards, he heard some one using profane 
language. It stirred his righteous indignation so 
deeply, that, approaching the swearer with one of 
his sons in hand, he thus rebuked him, " This boy 
was born and brought up in a heathen country and 
a land of idolatry; but in all his life, he never 
heard a man blaspheme his Maker until now?* 
The usual shamelessness of habitual swearers ap- 
peared in the answer that he received, " We'll teach 
him, sir! We'll teach him! !" 

As further corroborating the statement that 
India, as a rule, is not a profane country, we here 
subjoin, as given to the writer, the testimony of 
one of the sons* of the distinguished Scudder, 

~~*Rev. E. C. Scudder, M. D., Upper Red Hook, N. Y. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 57 

above mentioned, and who, following the example 
of his now sainted father, was himself a missionary 
in that large field for twenty-two years. " It is 
the use of obscene language, in its most hideous and 
disgusting forms, that is so prevalent in India, and 
not profanity. The obscenity of the people is 
of the grossest kind, and unmentionable in its char- 
acter. Filthy words are on the lips of every man, 
woman, and child, and the slightest disagreement or 
provocation calls them forth in the greatest pro- 
fusion. 

"The Hindoos, in their way, are a very religious 
people. While they will sometimes call down im- 
precations upon their gods, when everything does 
not go on smoothly, and especially when they do 
not receive favorable replies to their petitions, they 
are seldom profane in the sense in which we use 
the term. They will say, for example, ' Make it 
known, God ! that the crime which my accusers 
ascribe to me is false; if otherwise, let thy temple 
go to ruin ; let thy bowels burst ; let thyself be 
destroyed, and let thy shrine be leveled to the 
dust!' But they are not as a general thing profane, 
as are people in this Christian, and in many other 
lands." 

It is a sad confession, indeed, which the honest 
inquirer into the facts of the prevalence of this fear- 
ful vice finds himself compelled to make, that there 
are heathenish peoples on earth among whom an 
3* 



58 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

irreverent use of the name of the Supreme Being 
was never known, till it was introduced by foreigners 
from Christian lands ! In a "History of the 
Piratical States of Barbary"* published nearly 
sixty years ago, is stated this remarkable fact: — 
"Amidst all the vices and enormities of the Alge- 
rine Turks, some good qualities are observable 
among them. The most abandoned wretch never 
presumes to utter the name of God in vain, or add 
it by way of decoration to his ribaldry. Draughts 
and chess are their only games, and at these they 
never play for money, but coffee, sherbet, tobacco, 
or some such trifle." English and American crews, 
however, in the progress of a half century's com- 
mercial intercourse with those "Piratical States," 
have so schooled them in this vice, that the natives 
are now as proficient as their foreign teachers. 
Their unenviable improvement in the easily -learned 
art of profanity is set forth in the comparison so 
often made, "he swears like a pirate." 

The aborigines of America never profaned the 
name of the Great Spirit. This linguistic art be- 
came known to them through intercourse with the 
"pale faces." Nor could they swear in their own 
native dialects even after they had acquired a 
knowledge of the nature of the vice. It was only 
in broken English that they made attempts at pro- 

* Referred to in The Pulpit, Yol. First, p. 302, London, 

1824. 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 59 

fanity. Their unwritten vocabularies contained no 
imprecatory phrases, equal to such as we have 
heard from Anglicised tongues which, in one move- 
ment, cursed "the bloody Indian" and boasted of 
English civilization and enlightenment. Xor in 
their rudely-written hieroglyphic system of perpet- 
uating the remembrance of events and circumstances 
has there ever been discovered, by those who have 
made Indian characteristics a special study, any 
curious stroke or mysterious symbol whatever which 
could be construed as an irreverent representation 
of, or allusion to, the Great Spirit. Down even to 
the present day, the small remnants of the once 
powerful Tuscaroras and Tonawandas, living upon 
the Indian Reservation in Western Xew York, can- 
not swear in their native tongue. If any of them 
find themselves, at times, disposed to swear, they 
at once press into service their limited knowledge 
of English.* And, as if the genius of their own 
language were protesting against the senselessness 
of the habit, and forbidding them to acquire it, it is 
a curious circumstance that, when they do thus at- 
tempt to swear in English, they very frequently 
reverse the order of the words which constitute the 

* It is said that when they wish to impress in their own 
dialect an asseveration upon the mind of another, the 
Shoshone Indians are wont to use this eloquent expres- 
sion : "The earth hears me. The sun hears me. Shall I 
lie?" 



60 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

most common form of oath that we hear from the 
profane. As an ear-witness once expressed it to 
the writer, they u usually swear backwards."* 

Bad, then, as the " red man" is popularly sup- 
posed to be — treacherous, revengeful, blood-thirsty, 
cruel — yet, in his native condition, he is not pro- 
fane — a predicate that we wish were true of human 
nature, as it develops its various instincts, propensi- 
ties, and tendencies under the conditions of Christ- 

*The following alleged testimony of Mr. Henry R. 
Schoolcraft, than whom no better authority could be 
quoted on their habits, customs, and characteristics, to 
the absolute freedom of Indian dialects from profane ex- 
pressions, has been floating about the press recently. A 
thorough examination, however, of his voluminous works, 
by the writer, assisted by several interested friends, has 
failed to discover it. As it seems to present internal evi- 
dence of its authorship, for the credit of the much-abused 
"red man" on whom compliments are but seldom be- 
stowed, we can hardly consent to ignore it, even though 
we cannot now refer to the volume, chapter, and page, 
where it may be found : "Many things the Indians may 
be . accused of, but the practice of swearing they cannot. 
I have made many inquiries into the state of their vocabu- 
lary, and nothing is more bitter or reproachful than 
c match annemoos7i, ' which indicates bad dog. They have 
terms to indicate cheat, liar, thief, murderer, coward, 
fool, lazy man, drunkard, babbler ; but I have never 
heard of an imprecation, or oath. The genius of the lan- 
guage does not seem to favor the formation of terms used 
in oaths, or for the purpose of profanity, It is the result 
of other observation as well as my own to say, that the 
Indian cannot swear in his own language." 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 61 

ian civilization. To give oral expression to what- 
ever propensity to irreverence may exist within him, 
the wild, untutored, barbarous Indian must borrow,* 
and stammeringly use, a foreign tongue, while the 
intelligent, enlightened, civilized "pale faces," who 
for centuries have been crowding him out of his 
ancestral "hunting grounds" into such close quart- 
ers that in seeking game, he can now scarcely get 
beyond sight of the curling smoke of his own " wig- 
wam," never realize such a linguistic inconvenience. 
With the utmost ease they can combine certain 
words of their natural tongue in dreadful impreca- 
tions and blasphemies, and vociferate them so 
shamelessly, that if the innocent Indian — innocent 
apparently of any natural predisposition to irrever- 
ence — imagines that they believe in a Great Spirit 
at all, he cannot but infer from this manner of con- 
fessing their faith, that they hold Him as of but 
little practical use to them, save that His name can 
be so conveniently abused. Here, certainly, is food 
for reflection. 

Glancing, thus, at the prevalence of this malig- 
nant vice among so many, glad the while to know 

*A Xew York paper recently reported that a native 
Oneida Indian, who had been ordained to the Christian 
ministry, said, in a sermon preached in one of their 
churches, that he vras " thankful that the Creator did not 
give the Indian language enough to allow him to be pro- 
fane without first learning English." 



62 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

that it does not obtain among all peoples of this 
fallen world, the old query suggests itself to our 
thought with much force, " What is man?" Of his 
wonderful anatomical structure the formation and 
location of the hand alone afforded evidence enough 
to convince Galen of the folly of Atheism ; he rested 
in the conviction, occasioned by his study of the phe- 
nomena of his physical nature, that only God could 
have created man. His noble mental and moral en- 
dowments, his sublime capacities, so deeply affected 
Socrates that he felt prompted to call man himself " a 
little god," an enthusiastic view which voices itself 
in the impressive rhythm of the poet Young — 

" Think deeply, then, O man, how great thou art ; 
Pay thyself homage with a trembling heart ; 
What angels guard, no longer dare neglect, 
Slighting thyself, affront not God's respect." 

But such is the malevolence that his fallen nature 
evinces — a malevolence which, though it often ex- 
quisitely exhibits itself in a thousand other forms, 
yet. finds no more irrational, desperate and insulting 
expression than in the oaths and blasphemies with 
which, unblushingly facing his Maker, he invokes 
His "damnation," either upon himself or upon his 
fellow men, oY upon one or another of His crea- 
tures — that the predicate of "man" which is 
ascribed to Erasmus, as its author — " a little devil," 
— ought not to be accepted as a mere rhetorical 
figure. That it expresses what, at least nearly, 



PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. b3 

approaches a fact, is not doubtful, since Scripture 
itself mentions one of the chief elements of the 
character of such a depraved personage as being 
"enmity against God." 

It is with a deep feeling of shame that we are com- 
pelled thus to indite periods which are anything but 
flattering to man. Now and then enthusiastic pens, 
skipping over the forbidding aspects of his nature, 
magnify him as their subject. We heartily wish 
that, when they have exalted him to the height of 
admiration to which his superior powers entitle him, 
— a glorification not forbidden but rather encour- 
aged, here and there, by revelation — we could 
utter the words which an old philosopher was wont 
to say when something read to him seemed to chal- 
lenge a little examination — "there, stop there!" 
We would feel flattered, indeed — if such exaltation 
of man comprised the whole truth concerning him. 
But it is the teaching of our own observation, as 
well as of Scripture, that, if he is not what Erasmus 
called him, "a little devil," neither is he, nor can 
he ever become, an angel, so long as he indulges 
the sin which, more than all others, tends both to 
assimilate him into .the likeness of the one fallen, 
and to the effacement from his moral image of what- 
ever resemblance he bears to the other heavenly 
being. There is none who has made him a study 
but will agree with Pascal, that " man is the glory 
and scandal of the universe." 



CHAPTER III. 

THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 

/^vF what practical use is the habit of swearing? 
^-^ If the imprecations of the profane were no 
sooner spoken than answered, it might serve their 
w T icked purpose, if they really intend anything, to 
utter them. Nevertheless, if he knew that the 
curse would be executed at the instant of its utter- 
ance, where is the indurated wretch who would 
dare to ask his Maker to "damn" himself or oth- 
ers? Who does not shrink with horror at the 
thought of the terrible issues, did the Almighty not 
only hear but immedktely respond to the invoca- 
tions for His vengeance which are daily ascending 
to Him from the open throats and impious tongues 
of earth's myriads of swearers ? If, when calling 
upon Him, whether earnestly in a fit of passion or 
jestingly in a merry moment it matters not, " to 
sentence," either himself, or some other self, " to 
eternal torments in a future state," which is the 
meaning of the word "damn," the swearer, at the 
same moment, could see his petition answered, what 
a fearfully practical use would this be of his irra- 
tional habit ! 

To the end that the folly of such imprecations 
(64) 



THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 65 

may appear in all its startling magnitude, and with 
the prayer that the guilty may hereby become fear- 
ful of their own damnation, and be prompted anx- 
iously to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" 
let us suppose the Almighty as being willing to 
answer them as soon as uttered ; so far, at least, 
as present, visible destruction can illustrate the 
sense of the word "damn." As involved in this 
supposition we will suggest to the swearer, that he 
need not consider the condition of faith, on the ob- 
servance of which depend so largely God's responses 
to human prayers ; we will conceive for a moment, 
that He has waived this requirement in his case, or 
that He will condescendingly accede to his desire 
for vengeance upon himself or his fellowmen, with- 
out faith, on his part, in order to its fulfilment. 
We know that this supposition is not in accordance 
with the divine economy; but the reader need 
hardly be told that the truth of things often ap- 
pears very vividly by looking at them on opposite 
sides. 

Now, then, what would be the issues ? By some 
trivial offence some one angers the swearer; in his 
usual violent swaggering manner he calls upon his 
Maker to "damn" him; and scarcely has the im- 
precation fallen from his lips before the offender 
drops down before him, a corpse — "damned" as 
the swearer angrily asked that he should be, and to 
present appearance, to all eternity ! Two men are 



66 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

quarreling ; bitter word3 are hurled at each other as 
barbed shafts, intended to wound each other to the 
quick. It is not long before the Almighty is in- 
voked to help settle the quarrel ; but scarcely has 
each heard the other's curse invoked from heaven 
before both fall lifeless upon the floor — " damned" 
in accordance with each other's imprecations, and, 
so far as the frightened lookers-on can discover, to 
all eternity ! ! 

As men thus daringly invoke the divine wrath, 
not only upon each other, but as well upon the 
brute creation, suppose the swearer, for some slight 
inconvenience the beast occasions him, asks the 
Almighty to curse his horse ; instantly he drops in 
his stall, or in his harness out upon the highway, a 
carcass — "damned" as the swearer prayed he 
should be, so far as a brute can realize what that 
means ; unless, imagining it has a soul, the hell of 
the invisible world is intended as well for vicious 
brutes as for vicious human creatures. 

As not only upon themselves or each other and 
upon brute creatures men impiously imprecate the 
divine wrath, but even upon soulless, inanimate things, 
extremely silly as is the act viewed in this connec- 
tion, suppose the swearer, in his impatience that the 
work he is doing is not moving on smoothly, or is 
hindered by such unanticipated jars as every one 
experiences now and then in his daily routine of 
duties, or that the object he is handling does not 



THE USELESSNESS OE PROFANITY. 67 

suit him, or disappoints him, asks his Maker to 
curse it : instantly that work disarranges itself, or 
that object, which may have cost him much time and 
labor, and would cost much more to re-produce it, 
falls to pieces — shatters itself into fragments ; or, it 
takes fire and consumes itself — it is utterly de- 
stroyed — the only conceivable way in which such a 
material thing could, as the swearer wished it might, 
be "damned" If the Almighty thus answered 
the imprecations of the profane, whenever they 
offered them, and upon whomsoever or whatsoever 
they might elect to destruction, horrible as is the 
thought that any one could be malicious enough to 
swear, yet there would attach to the act the merit, 
if an infamous thing can be, at the same time, at all 
meritorious, that it is of practical use. 

" But this is mere word-painting — a mere fancy- 
sketch. There is nothing like it in the experience 
of the profane. It is, therefore, of no importance 
as an argument against profanity." Who should 
be more thankful that it is fiction, and not fact, than 
the swearer himself? With no intention to reason 
him out of his vile habit from fictitious premises, 
or by mere speculative statements, yet the writer 
respectfully submits to his serious thought, that, if 
his frequent oaths and imprecations mean anything 
at all, they mean even more than is above suggested 
and illustrated. The above-given hypothesis lim- 
its the " damnation" which he invokes, "to present 



68 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

appearance," or to as much of it as can now be 
seen. A full explanation of his fearful execrations 
would include what is not, and can not now be 
visible to the eye — the "damnation" of the soul, 
as invoked upon a human being, in that place or 
condition of inconceivable horrors, somewhere in 
the universe, which, in the terminology of Scripture, 
is "hell!" If, gravitating thither, as inevitably he 
must gravitate, so long as his profanity allies him 
with the enemies of God, he finds himself there 
at last, will it diminish his anguish in any appre- 
ciable degree, to know that he reached his destiny 
through God's response to his own wishes? Or, 
would it lessen at all his remorse merely to suspect, 
if not to know, that there might be others there in 
answer to his profane desire that they should be 
"damned?" Impossible as these ideas may appear 
to the swearer, yet it may somewhat moderate his 
incredulity to state the startling fact that "Jesus, 
the Son of the most high God," on a certain occa- 
sion,, no sooner heard than He answered the prayer 
of devils, and in His answer was involved the de- 
struction of " a great heard of swine." * 

In thus uttering profane maledictions, the swearer 
is supposed to do it either jestingly or sincerely, 
— "in fun" or "in earnest." In either case it is 
a fearful habit. Is it not a shocking act,— a 

*Matt. viii. 28-34 ; Mark v. 11-16 ; Luke viii. 27-33. 



THE USELESSXESS OF PROFANITY. 69 

rational, intelligent man invoking the wrath of the 
Almighty, either upon himself or upon others, 
merely "in fun?" If he means what he asks, or 
is " in earnest," perhaps the world would be bene- 
fited, if He answered, so far as it involved him- 
self — the petitioner — as well as heard such a 
prayer. If he is " in fun," or does not mean what 
he asks, that God should consign him to the tor- 
ments of hell — to the cruel mercies of the devil; 
that he should precipitate him into "the lake which 
burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the 
second death, "* then he is but mocking the Al- 
mighty — calling upon Him when he neither desires 
nor expects Him to hear, or asking Him for what 
he does not want. What an amusement is this, 
making his Maker a party to his "fun" for a 
sane man to enjoy! What exquisite malevolence 
it exhibits towards his fellow-sinners, for a man, 
if he is not acting a joke, to ask God to "damn" 
those whom His only Son died upon the cross to 
save ! And what an insult it must be to Him, to be 
asked by the very one — the guilty sinner — for whose 
salvation he instituted the grand scheme of redemp- 

* Rev. xxi. 8. If the scriptural tropes which so vividly 
represent "hell" are exaggerative, then we are deceived 
by revelation. If they teach, or imply, more than is true, 
our faith in the integrity of the Bible cannot but be weak- 
ened. It is wiser, safer, and more in accordance with the 
general tenor of revealed truth, to accept them as depict- 
ing rather less than more than what "hell" really is. 



70 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

tion, to let that sacrifice of His own dear Son, so 
far as he himself or a few others are concerned, 
fail to accomplish its end ! 

But more : is the habit of swearing of any orna- 
mental use ? And if so, what does it ornament ? 
Certainly not intellect. If the complexion of one's 
mind is reflected by his repeated outer acts, no less 
than his face, fair or foul, answers to itself from a 
mirror before it, how ugly must be the features of 
his inner self who is ever using his tongue as a 
pencil dipped in slime, to disfigure it ! Like a fin- 
ished demon, artistically essaying to destroy Ra- 
phael's peerless portraiture of the Redeemer, by 
translating His expression of supernal love into a 
dark and repulsive aspect of infernal hatred, your 
cool, deliberate, shameless swearer, with less artis- 
tic genius and scarcely less wickedness, by every 
oath or irreverent expression he utters, not only 
defaces God's beautiful moral image impressed 
upon his immaterial soul, but actually translates it 
into the likeness of His arch-enemy — the devil. 
None can thus habitually sin without inflicting upon 
himself the most lamentable of all self-inflicted in- 
juries, moral deformity. Originally beautiful, en- 
dowed with capacities and excellencies which bespeak 
its source no less clearly than the light that ema- 
nates from the sun, yet sin — and none is more malef- 
icent than profanity — may so deform the soul, that 
its Creator Himself shall ultimately disown it ; the 



THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 71 

Infinite One shall turn away from it with loathing ; 
there shall be no beauty in it that He should de- 
sire it. 

The sentiment is as true as it is beautiful which 
we have somewhere happened on, that "it is a self- 
recording world we live in. Things beautiful leave 
behind them marks of their own kind and nature." 
A star shoots across the horizon and is apparently 
gone forever ; but it is not annihilated — it unreels 
its silvery thread at once across the heavens and 
your memory, reader ! — you see it as we write of 
it. u The rolling rock marks its own descent from 
top to base of the mountain. The sweeping river 
traces its own course through the sands." The 
fern leaf stereotypes its own delicate fibrous sys- 
tem upon the fossil coal. Nature's wonderful 
" stone book " is full of such strange records. " In 
the red sandstone there are found, in. some places, 
marks which are clearly the impressions of showers 
of rain ; and these so perfect, that it can even be 
detected in which direction the shower inclined, and 
from what quarter it proceeded ; and this ages ago." 
It is remarkable that, especially of her destructive 
operations, Nature never fails to observe this office 
of recording results. From its track of devastation 
you learn the direction and power of the hurricane. 
The wrecks of many vessels are scattered along 
the beach — a storm has raged upon the sea. A 
naked, leafless, scarred tree stands before you — the 



72 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

lightning has been quivering among its branches, 
and down its torn trunk. 

If the natural world thus records its own opera- 
tions and results, so, too, the moral world, of whose 
impulses or movements in his inner self every one 
is conscious. What in man is good, beautiful, and 
true, if carefully nurtured, shall leave its impress 
upon the soul so distinctly, that it will come to shine 
ultimately through his very countenance. And 
what is vile and repulsive — the evil that is in him — 
if left to its own addiction, shall as deeply, though 
oppositely, affect him. The thoughts that pass 
through his mind, the emotions by which he is 
swayed, shall record themselves in the very lines of 
his face. Illustrative of this truth is the striking 
incident related of an artist. Ambitious to draw 
the portrait of Innocence, he sketched on his can- 
vass a beautiful boy, in whom the depraved in- 
stincts of human nature had not yet been developed : 
And a lovely face it was that looked out from his 
easel. Years after he had finished this essay, he 
wished to sketch another — its counterpiece, Guilt. 
And where should he look for a model, but in a 
prison ? He searched it for one whose face might 
serve him as a picture of guilt. Finding one whose 
every feature had been made repulsive by a life of 
crime, he painted his likeness. But what was his 
astonishment, on finishing his essay, to learn that 
that very criminal had stood before him years ago. 



THE USELESSXESS OF PROFANITY. 73 

when a guileless child, to serve him as a model of 
" Innocence!" " Vice had left its deforming marks 
behind it, and had transformed the beautiful boy 
into a monster." 

Nor does profanity ever set off the dignity of 
manhood. He who lets himself down to the indul- 
gence of the most vulgar of all human vices lacks 
the first element of manliness, self-respect. And if 
he has no respect for himself, how can he expect it 
from others ? 

To this deep sense of self-respect which a man 
cannot ignore without imperiling his good name and 
sacrificing the dignity of his nature, there is allied 
the power of self-control. The true man will do no 
mean thing — nothing that will lessen the esteem of 
those who know him, and find pleasure in his 
acquaintance. The majesty of his manhood is his 
royal reason for not countenancing a dishonorable 
act — a reason which grows the stronger the more 
he thoughtfully considers the revealed truth, that in 
the scale of being his is a rank but one round lower 
than that of angels ; and still stronger, as, following 
the gravitation of his thought, it leads him to find 
no less his own than their origin in the Supreme of 
all beings. Cultivating a sense of the grandeur of 
his nature, which is as much a duty to one who 
would scripturally appreciate himself as is the self- 
examination which presents to his thought all the 
evil there is in him, he will allow no vice which he 
4 



74 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

can conquer to lead him as a captive, or to tarnish 
the glory of his manhood. It is such rigid self-con- 
trol that makes noblemen. Though a man boasts of 
high birth, even of royal lineage, and may expect, 
therefore, the deference of the plebeian masses, yet 
without the nobility of character which can result 
only from such uncompromising self-discipline, he 
has only the semblance of man-like-ness. Blood 
counts nothing here. 

" Thrice noble is the man who of himself is king !"* 

Nor is profanity a scholarly accomplishment. 
The learned, as a rule, are not given to this vice. 
It is generally accepted as proof of an empty head 
as well as of a bad heart. The Sunday-school 
Times, commenting recently on an advertisement of 
a New York bird-fancier who offered to the public 
the opportunity of buying some " swearing parrots," 
says, "Indeed, we are inclined to think that most of 
the profanity in the world comes from swearing 
parrots — from boys and men who do not swear 
because they really think swearing a commendable 
form of speech, or an aid to eloquence, or a pleas- 
ure to society, but who use profane language merely 
because they have heard others use it, and have 
had just brains enough to imitate other people's 
vices." Says one of our gravest and most dignified 
periodicals,! " If we observe such persons (swearers) 

* Phineas Fletcher. 

f The North American Review. 



THE USELES3XES8 OF PROFANITY. 75 

closely, we shall generally find that the fierceness 
of their profanity is in inverse ratio to the affluence 
of their ideas. We venture to affirm that the pro- 
fanes t men within the circle of your knowledge are 
all afflicted with a chronic weakness of intellect. 
The utterance of an oath, though it may prevent a 
vacuum in sound, is no indication of sense. It re- 
quires no genius to swear. The reckless taking of 
sacred names in vain is as little characteristic of 
true independence of thought as it is of high moral 
culture. In this breathing and beautiful world, 
filled, as it were, with the presence of Deity, and 
fragrant with incense from its thousand altars of 
praise, it would be no servility should we catch the 
spirit of reverent worshippers, and illustrate in our- 
selves the sentiment, that 

" 'The Christian is the highest style of man.' " 

In this utilitarian age — an age in which only 
what promises pecuniary results is supposed to be 
worth consideration — a feeling which betrays itself 
in the slang query, so often asked "on 'Change" 
and in the marts of trade, " will it pay ?" it is to 
the point to ask, is profanity of any commercial, or 
business use whatever? To the habits of industry 
and honesty, in business life, there attaches a real 
value. A young man of such habits need never be 
without a clerkship, if he wishes to become a mer- 
chant. And once in a "position" he is not often 



76 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

on the wing for a more lucrative place. His em- 
ployer cannot spare him. His good habits have 
made him indispensable. He is worth to his em- 
ployer all the salary he receives, and more. But 
what value attaches to the habit of common swear- 
ing ? Does it faciliate the mental and manual labor 
of intricate book-keeping ? Is it any help at all to 
a man's business ? Does it ever increase " patron- 
age ?" Does it ever strengthen one's credit at the 
bank ? Does it ever deepen the confidence of the 
community in a man's business integrity ? 

If the sw r earer be a merchant, his profanity is no 
recommendation either of himself or his goods. On 
calling at his counters to "trade" with him, if he 
blurted out some wicked expletive, or only a word 
w r hich, though not really profane, was yet unbecom- 
ing a gentleman, would you not resent the affront ? 
Would you, or any of your friends, thus insulted, 
"call again" at his store to "trade" with him? 
Of what use to a merchant is swearing ? 

Or, if the swearer be a physician, does his pro- 
fanity add a whit to the efficacy of his prescrip- 
tions ? Does it increase the faith of the people in 
his medical skill, to have it known and whispered 
among them, that he swears ? Do his patients get 
better the sooner ? Does it aid him in forming a 
correct diagnosis of the diseases w T hich rack their 
persons and poison the springs of life ? Of what 
use to a physician is swearing ? 



THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 77 

Or, if the swearer be a boss mechanic, or fore- 
man of some factory, or the head of a gang of 
laborers, will the oaths that he rips out now and 
then at his men, make them more active and effi- 
cient ? Can curses sharpen the wits of an obtuse 
workman? Driven by the lash of a profane tongue 
— a lash whose sting is more painful than that of a 
scorpion, since it reaches and rankles in the soul — 
will such a dull, indifferent workman cheerfully 
spring to his task, with a stronger determination to 
learn how to do it, and to do as much as is expected 
of him? The " boss " who thus abuses his men 
betrays his unfitness for his position. He may 
know how and how much of the work in hand ought 
to be done, but he knows not how to govern men, 
which is always requisite to successful management. 
Where is the " foreman," or '• superintendent," or 
"boss," who can prove that profanity is a neces- 
sary auxiliary to the production of a large amount 
of goods or work ? Of what use to workmen of any 
class is swearing ? 

Or, if the swearer be a lawyer, does his profanity 
enlarge his practice ? Does it attract paying clients 
to his office ? Is it any help to him in analyzing 
the " cases " submitted to his hands ? In what pos- 
sible wav can profanity be of use to a lawyer? 

Here, reader, let us pause and lament the fact, 
which is as humiliating as it is true, that some of 
our most eminent lawyers — -jurists of national repu- 



78 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

tation — distinguished "counselors," than whom 
none can entertain a profounder appreciation of the 
authority, dignity, and importance of law ; and even 
some who wear the ermine — the emblem of purity, 
the symbol of a dignity scarcely equalled on earth 
— who, on " the bench/' most gravely 

"from tli' apparent What conclude the Why, 
Infer the motive from the deed, and show 
That what we did was what we meant to do," 

are guilty of this more serious transgression of di- 
vine than of human law. That men whose enno- 
bling office it is to interpret, enunciate, and apply 
to the wants and exigencies of society, the eternal 
principles of justice — "the greatest interest of man 
on earth, 9 ' says Webster — should be at least 
patterns of propriety, if not models of almost every 
human excellence, is an expectation which, in all 
candor, they themselves must admit is reasonable. 
Their profanity betrays a remarkable inconsistency 
— the inconsistency of advocating by their example 
what it is the gravely-important business of their 
life to prevent, viz. the transgression of law — an 
offence not the less but the more considerable, in 
that the law transgressed has been enacted, if not 
by human legislators, yet by their Maker. Guard- 
ians, as they are, of rights and immunities dear as 
life itself, and being " the only civil delinquents 
whose judges must of necessity be chosen from 
themselves,"* when we observe their wilful infrac- 

*Lacon. 



THE USBLBSSNESS OB PROFANITY. 79 

tions of divine law, or of obligations due to the 

Almighty, it is with mingled feelings of pain and 
wonder that we ask the people whom they serve, 

•• "Who shall guard the guards themselves ? M 

Pitv — oh! what a pity, that men of such com- 
manding, influential positions — men of such enviable 
talents, natural and acquired, powers and abilities 
by the right use of which they might reach almost 
the rank of angels, should yet choose, by practicing 
the low vice of common swearing, to identify them- 
selves with the verv scum of society ! In old 
Greece or Rome they would have been deified for 
their mental and physical, without any reference at 
all to their moral excellencies ; but in this Christian 
land, where we are taught that goodness is great- 
ness, irrespective of such accidents as rank, power, 
and wealth, we must be excused, for the feeling in 
us is irrepressible, if, on happening in their pres- 
ence, we treat them merely as illustrious moral 
lepers. Of what use to the learned and honorable 
members of the bench, or the bar. is the habit of 
profanity ? 

Such practical questions as are above suggested, 
touching the utility, or rather inutility of swearing 
to certain vocations and professions, might be re- 
peated so as to include all the pursuits of men. 
Absurd as they may seem, even to the swearer 
himself, since he would receive it as an insult to his 



80 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

reason if we but hinted that he could soberly give 
them any other than negative answers, yet our 
point is gained if he is prompted by them to 
acknowledge the absurdity of the habit of which he 
is guilty. It may be stated in general terms, with- 
out fear of contradiction on the part of any one who 
is disposed to consider this matter fairly and hon- 
estly, that there is no department of human activity 
or of human enjoyment in which any help whatever 
or practical advantage can be derived 7 directly or 
indirectly, or in the remotest degree, from the fool- 
ish and wanton habit of profane swearing. The 
buffoon may respond to this statement with some 
spurt of wit. But he need hardly be told, that the 
maxim of the English skeptic, Lord Shaftesbury, that 
"ridicule is the test of truth" — a maxim based 
upon an idea which he discovered, doubtless, in the 
effusion of a heathen poet* whose inspiration was be- 
gotten more of wine than of imagined muses — has 
long since been exploded. If nothing is true that 
can be laughed at, the maxim itself must be false, 
since it involves absurdities that can excite no other 
feeling than that of ridicule. Disposed as swearers 
frequently are, when taken to task for the vice, to 
treat it humorously, to tone down the gravity of 
their offence by some attempt at witty repartee that 
shall excite the laughter of by-standers, yet they 

* Horace, Book I., Satire X., lines 14-15. 



THE USELESSXES3 OF PROFANITY. 81 

should not forget that, if they persist in their pro- 
fanity, a time is coming when, the tables being 
turned, " He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh ; 
the Lord," whose holy name they now so flippantly 
blaspheme, " shall have them in derision."* A 
little sober reflection on their part who are wont to 
treat this aggravating sin so lightly, may result in 
the conviction that it is not only of no practical use 
in promoting, but is actually destructive of their 
best interests in two worlds — the present which they 
are certain shall end, and the future which the}' are 
equally certain shall never end. 

Some one has said, more forcibly than elegantly, 
that " others serve the devil for pay, but cursers 
and swearers are volunteers who get nothing for 

O CD 

their pay." Quite as forcible and true is the often- 
quoted language of the distinguished Jonathan Ed- 
wards, "Some sins are productive of temporary 
profit or pleasure ; but profaneness is productive of 
nothing, unless it be shame on earth, and damna- 
tion in hell. It is the most gratuitous of all kinds 
of wickedness, a sort of pepper-corn acknowledg- 
ment of the sovereignty of the devil over those who 
indulge it." As in old feudal times the tenant of 
a Scotch landholder waited upon him once a year 
to offer him ceremoniously a pepper-corn — one of 
the smallest berries known to the botanist — as a 



*Psa. Li. 4. 

4* 



82 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

token of submission to his magisterial rank, so your 
common swearer offers his very small tribute of 
profanity to the devil ; with certain distinct differ- 
ences, however, in favor of the one over against 
the other; as, for instance, the humble Scotch ten- 
ant rigidly and honestly observed a mere human law 
which exacted such a tribute, nor was the tribute 
itself, though insignificant, dishonorable ; but the 
shameless swearer violates the divine law which 
forbids profanity ; and further, the almost enslaved 
Scotch tenant paid the little tribute but once, while 
the hide-bound swearer pays his a thousand times 
a year. 

It was a practical question that a real gentleman 
once asked of a pretentious one, " What does Satan 
pay you for swearing?" 

"He don't pay me anything," was his reply. 

"Well, you work cheap," responded his re- 
prover, "to lay aside the character of a gentleman ; 
to inflict so much pain on your friends and civil 
people; to suffer; and, lastly, to risk your own 
precious soul, and for nothing ! — you certainly do 
work cheap, very cheap indeed!" Not less cor- 
rect, though more tersely stated, was another's 
estimate of the unprofitableness of profanity, who 
compared the swearer to "a fish that bites at a 
naked hook." 

How utterly gratuitous and contemptible is this 
vice, is admirably set forth in the well known fable 



THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 83 

of Beelzebub and his imps. These sallied out one 
morning as usual to command for the day each his 
brigade, or division, of the grand army of sinners. 
One was at the head of the division of murderers ; 
another led the division of liars ; a third superin- 
tended the gamblers ; a fourth put himself in front 
of the lecherous. Each, thus, had his complement 
of men to look after. The work of the day having 
been finished, these division commanders met in 
council at the mouth of a large cave, and fell into 
a dispute as to who commanded the meanest set of 
men. The controversy waxed warm, and was con- 
tinued far into the night. Finding it impossible to 
reach a decision, they concluded, at length, to sub- 
mit the . question to the judgment of their com- 
mander-in-chief. Beelzebub having been summoned 
and the question stated to him, deliberately said 
that " swearers where his best subjects ; for while 
they were the largest division in his employ, yet 
they cost him nothing. The murderer got some- 
thing for killing, the thief for stealing, the liar for 
lying, and the gambler for his sly trickery ; but the 
swearer was the meanest of all — he served without 
pay." Fabulous as is this anecdote, yet the swearer, 
if he looks at his vice on all sides, will hardly deny 
the fact which it sets forth. 

In his sermon entitled, " The Guilt of Profane- 
ness" the Rev. Dr. Dwight, discussing this vice 
in the light of its unprofitableness, says, " In the 



84 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

commission of most sins, mankind usually expect, 
and believe, they shall obtain some natural good; 
and this is almost always the prime object of their 
sinful pursuit : good, forbidden indeed, and there- 
fore unlawful ; yet still really good in the apprehen- 
sion of the sinner. Thus persons commonly lie, and 
cheat, for the sake of some gain; become intoxi- 
cated, on account of the pleasure experienced in the 
use of strong drink; are gluttons, to enjoy the de- 
lightful taste of dainty food : and thus in almost all 
other cases of transgression. 

But in profaneness there seems to be no good, 
either enjoyed or expected, besides that which is 
found in the mere love and indulgence of sin. No 
person ever acquired property, health, reputation, 
place, power, nor it would seem pleasure, from 
profaneness. Those particular movements of the 
tongue which articulate profaneness, produce, so 
far as I am able to conjecture, no more agreeable 
sensations than any other. The words, which em- 
body profane thoughts are neither swoother, nor 
sweeter, than any other words. If, then, profane- 
ness were not sinful, such words would be pro- 
nounced no oftener than any other. The pleasure 
found in profaneness such as it is, is therefore 
found, chiefly if not wholly, in the wickedness 
which it involves, and expresses. The sin is the 
good ; and not anything peculiar to the manner in 
which it is committed, nor any thing which the 



THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 85 

profaneness is expected to be the means of acquir- 
ing."* 

It is the deliberately-expressed judgment even of 
so amiable a man as the distinguished Dr. Theo- 
dore Cuyler, that "the man who swears turns 
speech into a curse, and, before his time, rehearses 
the dialect of hell. He waits for no bait ; but ' bites 
at the devil's bare hook.' The shrewd Quaker's ad- 
vice to the profane youth, i Swear away my young 
friend, till thee gets all that bad stuff out of thee,' 
points to the real source of the vice ; for it is out 
of an evil heart that proceed evil thoughts, false 
witness and blasphemies." 

It would be superfluous, perhaps, on the part of 
the writer, to add anything to these strong testi- 
monies against the wickedness and unprofitableness 
of this vice. If the swearer who may be pursuaded 
to read this essay, attempted with an honest desire 
to do him good, will sit down and calmly review 
the statements offered in this chapter, respecting the 
utter uselessness of his vice, we have no fear but 
that he will accept them as being true, though he 
may feel disposed to complain of the plainness and 
directness of the language in which they are 
clothed. Says the quaint George Herbert, of the 
influence of whose exemplary piety his own brother 
once wrote, that " where he lived beneficed, he was 
little less than sainted" — 

*D wight's Theology, Yol. iii., p. 204. 



86 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

u Take not His Name, who made thy mouth, in vain ; 
It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse : 
Lust and wine plead a pleasure ; avarice gain ; 
But the cheap swearer, through his open sluice, 
Lets his soul run for naught, as little fearing : 
Were I an epicure, I could bate swearing."'* 

* The Temple. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 

npHE real gentleman never swears. In his man- 
-^- ual of politeness the vocabulary of slang is laid 
under an interdict which he cannot ignore without 
imperiling his reputation. He never offends his 
friends of either sex, let him meet them where he 
may, by such language as would scarcely be admir- 
able even upon the lips of a professional clown ; and 
as to enemies, he is too courteous, and gentle, and 
hence watchful, as well of his acts as of his words, 
to admit of the supposition that he has many, if 
any at all. In the calmness and deliberateness of 
his self- equipoise such an one needs no profane ex- 
plosives to signalize his presence, and awe his com- 
pany, whether stranger or acquaintance, into re- 
spectful obeisance. No such moral thunder accom- 
panies his advent — his address is striking enough 
without it. The instincts of good breeding prompt 
him to eschew all forms of vulgarity ; not less when 
he happens incidentally among those who, though 
not professionally vulgar, yet make no formal pre- 
tensions to gentility, than when, without art or any 
apparent design to please, he gracefully moves 
about the drawing-rooms of the elite. 
(87) 



88 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

His badge of gentility is not some visible, ex- 
terior thing — something of mere extrinsic Avorth, — 
which he can don or doff to suit his own convenience, 
or his company, though he is never negligent of his 
outer self. He is always a gentleman ; he is never 
less than that, since he cannot detach from himself 
and lay aside the most essential characteristic of 
rank, a high sense of honor. He might as well try 
to change his natural identity, so that his nearest 
friends should not know him, as to attempt to act 
otherwise than as a gentleman. His gentlemanship 
is as much a part of his very self as his personal 
form, — much more, indeed, than his dress-suit which 
he need not wear every day to command others' 
admiration, but only on special occasions, and then 
merely to set off his exterior, and therefore in- 
ferior self. 

From the lips of one who is thus intrinsically a 
gentleman, we never hear bad language. His mouth 
is not adapted to the dialect of the profane, or the 
foul idioms of the rake. As some cannot sing be- 
cause their vocal organs are not equal to the art— 
a natural disability which often occasions them 
regret — so the true gentleman finds himself un- 
equal to the pleasure, if such it be, of swearing, — 
a moral inability which not only never occasions 
him regret, but is really a matter of self-gratulation, 
and the more in that it is not natural, but acquired. 
An attempt, on his part, to utter such irreverent or 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 89 

indecent phrases as so glibly roll off the tongue of 
the lewd boor, would be an attempt to act against a 
fixed habit. In this event, his sense of morality 
would smite him ; his reason would begin a dispute 
with him about the unaccustomed act ; his judg- 
ment would protest against it ; all the moral forces 
of his nature would bristle up to it, as a sin against 
himself as well as against his Maker ; so that, if he 
swore at all, he could not do it very easily or com- 
fortably. It is no more difficult to acquire, thus, 
the habit of clean than the habit of unclean speech. 
His claim to the distinction of a gentleman whom 
the tailor, the jeweler, and the laundress, — a trio of 
artists, — make up between them, and finish, so far as 
their skill and taste can finish him outwardly, is cer- 
tainly questionable, so long as he lacks the linguistic 
accomplishment of fitness of speech. His suit is not 
the only thing that should fit him snugly, or his general 
" make up "the only thing that should not appear 
slovenly ; or his carriage along the street the only 
kind of uprightness that he should cultivate. The 
hint given by the brilliant wit, who, on some public 
occasion, was to act the role of Lord Mayor, is suf- 
ficient to convey our meaning. He could wear very 
gracefully the paraphernalia of the high office, and 
make all his movements accord very strictly with 
its dignity ; but what about his words ? In his 
assumed hesitancy as to his competency in this 
respect, the w T it waited upon the Lord Mayor whom 



90 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

he was to personate, and facetiously asked, that he 
would let him take the measure of his lordship' s 
mouth. Such a measurement of words, as to their 
fitness to be spoken by them, is just what many 
men have never made, to whom, otherwise, we 
might defer as being " gentlemen." They have all 
the covetable accidents of gentility. Their parents 
conferred on them the distinction of high birth. 
They have wealth, and, therefore, first-class friends 
and acquaintances. Nature, too, has given them a 
prepossessing presence which, with a fair share of 
intelligence and wit, guarantees a welcome to any 
club they may happen on, and many a social circle 
they may visit. Nev rtheless, artfully as they 
may, and often do, angle in society for admira- 
tion, they may rest assured, that for such as is 
really Avorth the catch they will troll in vain, and 
for this best of reasons, that they have never taken 
the measure of a gentleman's mouth. We submit 
to the cool judgment of the reader, that common 
swearing is the vice of the vulgar, be the rank 
what it may that society accords to them. 

Social caste is no criterion of gentility. We have 
discovered real gentlemen among hod-carriers and 
coal-heavers; nor have we valued them the less 
for their uninviting, unattractive outer appearance. 
Men are to be estimated, not by what is on them, or 
about them, but by what is in them. The darkness 
and dirt of the mine detract nothing from the value 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 91 

of a gem. When will the world learn, that all the 
royal on earth are not living in palaces, or sitting 
on thrones and stretching forth jewelled sceptres ? 

To estimate a man by the high rank conferred on 
him for one reason or another by society, which 
seldom, if ever, cares to look beneath the surface of 
things, is a mistake which is pardonable only in one 
who has not mingled with the world long enough to 
discover the guises and disguises, the illusions and 
delusions, the conceits and deceits, under which so 
many of the so-called "upper classes" are living a 
brilliant yet false life. But in a thousand other in- 
stances such a mistake is not venial — instances of 
persons who have become too intimate with men to 
ignore the truthfulness of the trite maxim, as applied 
to them, that "all is not gold that glitters," but 
who inconsistently and persistently make, the while, 
as if they understood the old truism to have been 
intended by its author as a test merely of metals, 
and not of men. Many who can easily and instantly 
tell the difference of value between a new brass medal 
and a genuine sovereign, find it difficult, if not im- 
possible, to ascertain the real worth of some of their 
acquaintances in " high life," — a difficulty explained 
by their own evident over-weaning fondness for 
brilliant company, their irrepressible ambition to 
affiliate with such as the French distinguish as the 
6lite, and, not their ignorance of real differences 
between them, but their disinclination, fostered by 



92 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

their own pride and the elite themselves, to dis- 
criminate sound moral from empty material, and 
pretentious social worth. The fact is, that men 
always have, and we suppose always will — at least 
till the prophetic millennial period, the world's 
"golden age" shall have been well ushered in, 
when, if not infallible for a thousand years, they 
will certainly be less fallible than they now are, and 
more competent in every sense to distinguish the 
true from the false — let their eyes usurp an office 
which belongs exclusively to that most royal of 
human attributes, reason. Their eyes have quite 
too long played the supreme judge, in determining 
the not-very-difficult problems of merit and demerit 
which men's lives are ever suggesting — a folly 
somewhat like, and far more reprehensible than, 
that of an architect who attempting the erection of 
a fine building, should refuse to hold the plumb-line 
to his work, and apply the rule and the square, and 
trust to a mere glance, now and then, at the rising 
structure, to determine whether or not it is accu- 
rately proportionate. 

Circumstances, accidental or of their own inge- 
nious planning, may, and often do, elevate to high 
political places men who, either for their real lack 
of attractive moral qualities or for their apparent 
indisposition to let them shine on 

' ' inferior eyes 
That borrow' their behaviours from the great," 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 93 

should hardly have the assurance to claim the ap- 
probation of the Christian public. Our Christian 
ideal of true worth peremptorily forbids the admira- 
tion — often fulsome, indeed — which less fortunate, 
though not less ambitious, aspirants to high offices 
are so ready to spend on them. Their praise who 
have learned to distinguish substance from shadow, 
the real from the unreal, cannot be commanded ; to 
be enjoyed it must first be deserved, which is not 
true in instances of men who, ignoring the real 
majesty of goodness, presume that, independent of 
any other than purely political considerations, their 
eminent offices, or positions, entitle them to popular 
esteem. Formally respectful and loyal to such 
mistaken claimants for our deeper regards, as being 
politically our superiors, though they may be as 
great moral monsters as the tyrant Nero himself, to 
whom Paul exhorts* the Roman converts to "be 
subject," yet it does not follow, as a necessary 
sequence to high social rank, which the world usually 
identifies with such political distinction, that w T e are 
to accept, and much less to flatter them as being 
gentlemen — so long, at all events, as they habitually 
violate such proprieties as are expected even of the 
humblest persons who covet the good opinion of 
their few acquaintances, and practice such immor- 
alities, one of the grossest of which is profane 
swearing, as can never command its approbation, 

*Rom. xiii. 1. 



94 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

but, instead, the deep aversion of the Christian 
public. It is but stating a truism to remark here, 
that genuine worth and high social rank are not 
synonymous phrases. 

Very tenacious as are the English of class dis- 
tinctions — more, perhaps, than any other civilized 
people on earth — yet, be it said to their credit 
that, as a rule, they are wont to distinguish intrinsic 
from merit that is simply and only extrinsic. " The 
people of England," says a popular writer,* "have 
a remarkably nice feeling in this respect, and even 
the splendor of the highest rank will seldom mislead 
them. If a man of the highest birth depart in his 
conduct, or merely in his manners, from what his 
situation requires of him, you will soon hear it said, 
even by persons of the lowest class, " Though a 
lord, he is not a gentleman." Whether in our own 
country, where it would probably gratify the aspir- 
ations of many to attain the dignity supposed to 
inhere in titled classes, or in any other where such 
classes are too closely identified with the social 
organization to justify the expectation that they 
will ever become extinct, it would be well for those 
who cannot feel that they are in the presence of 
gentility unless they are face to face with persons 
of high social position, to con both the sentiment so 
well expressed by the Oriental couplet — 

*M. de Stael Holstein's Letters on England. 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 95 

"A jewel is a jewel still, though lying in the dust, 

And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest 
thrust," 

and that of the poet Pollok — 

« * * # * Qod no value set, 

That man should none, on goods of worldly kind : 

On transitory, frail, external things, 

Of migratory, ever-changing sort ; 

And further taught, that in the soul alone, 

The thinking, reasonable, willing soul, 

He placed the total excellence of man ; 

And meant him evermore to seek it there." 

By some who occupy eminent positions, yet ap- 
preciate the moralities of a worthy life less than the 
flattering address of their fellows, it will very likely 
be called "cant," thus to strip them of their gen- 
tlemanship on purely moral grounds. Nevertheless, 
it is still true that only as they become good can 
they become "perfect gentlemen." By all in so- 
ciety who entertain just views of the excellence of 
such a distinction, it is accepted as an ultimatum 
for which there is no equivalent, that he who aspires 
to it must be a man at least of irreproachable mor- 
ality, if not an avowed godly man. Xor can the 
mere charge of "cant" prove this widely-accepted 
sentiment to be fictitious, or untrue. Nothing is 
proved by a laugh, but that the laugher himself is 
amused. 

Possibly it may modify their exceptions to these 
views of true gentlemanly character, who are more 



96 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

amused by them than convinced of their correctness, 
to be told the scriptural truth, that their Maker, this 
infinitely beneficent Being whom they offend, per- 
haps daily, by their immoralities, once demonstrated 
to the world that He held His goodness as consti- 
tuting His glory. It was a bold — almost an auda- 
cious petition that Moses once addressed to Him, 
"I beseech thee, show me thy glory."* It was an 
extraordinary request. He hardly apprehended the 
grandeur, nor seemed to fear the issues of a full, 
unlimited manifestation of what he desired to see. 
Nevertheless, his remarkable prayer was granted. 
But it was not an overwhelming display of infinite 
Power that he was permitted to see ; nor a myste- 
rious revelation of the divine Omnipresence ; nor 
some wonderful demonstration of His Omniscience ; 
nor a special manifestation of any attribute of His 
being, save that of His Goodness. It should at once 
and forever end their sneers who flippantly pro- 
nounce all exhortations to goodness, in order to dig- 
nity of character, as " nothing but the cant of drivel- 
ing religionists," to be informed that in response 
to the entreaty of Moses, " I beseech thee, show me 
thy glory ! " the only absolutely excellent Being in 
the universe said, u I will make all my goodness 
pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of 
the Lord before thee ; and will be gracious to whom 
I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom 

* Ex. xxxiii. 18-23. 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 97 

I will show mercy." We call him "God," and not 
merely sentimentally admire, but we worship Him, 
because He is good. If His goodness, as He Him- 
self has declared, constitutes the chief excellence of 
His Maker, is it not folly for His creature, man — 
His best piece of workmanship, the climax of His 
creative skill — endowed, as he is, with such grand 
possibilities — to expect dignity or excellence of char- 
acter, independently of this moral element ? No 
one can become great without goodness. 

Besides this, so long as it is on record in the New 
Testament — of which the single scripture* that St. 
Paul wrote, touching enviable character, if practi- 
cally observed, will more completely finish a man 
than all the " Letters of Lord Chesterfield" — that 
the most perfect Man whom the world ever saw was 
born in a stable ; that He was the recognized son of 
a common mechanic ; that He was brought up in 
the meanest village of Palestine ; that in His man- 
hood He was so poor that He had " not where to 
lay His head ;" that He mingled with the vilest of 
the vile, and was no more sullied by contact with 
them than the rays of the sun in passing through 
polluted air ; and that at last the social and ecclesi- 

*Phil. iv. 8. "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are 
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
praise, think on these things." 
5 



98 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

astical prejudices of His people, breaking down all 
the restraints of reason and law, nailed Him to the 
cross, between two thieves — just so long shall we 
hoot at the notion which, unsustained either by rea- 
son or revelation, the world will entertain, that a 
man's worth is to be rated by his social rank. In 
the progress of time and the development of truth, 
there will dawn upon the world an era when moral 
excellence alone will be the universally-accepted 
criterion of rank. And in the re-adjustments of 
caste to which society will then be submitted, none 
will be more surprised than many of the profane, 
immoral elite themselves, to find that, as lead in 
water, they have dropped to the lowest " positions ;" 
and none will enjoy the social changes more than 
the morally worthy, who, though now ostracized 
from circles, fellowships, and associations which 
would be hallowed, not profaned, by their presence, 
or are now so often unceremoniously elbowed aside, 
as not possessing the essential concomitants of gen- 
tility, will then find themselves lifted up to the 
highest places. However long it may be, under 
adverse circumstances, before the fact which natural 
philosophy teaches us proves itself, yet, at last, 
u water will find its level." 

Will the reader here let us remark again, that so 
genuine a man as we have ever held a gentleman to 
be, will not swear. Whatever may be one's pre- 
tences to this character, if he himself lacks so much 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 99 

in reverence, and so much in respect for your rev- 
erence, for the Supreme Being, that, in your hear- 
ing, he will rudely, needlessly, and shamelessly 
sputter out His name, to engage your attention, 
forsooth, or to give point to some sally of wit, or 
strength to some weak expression, or brilliance to 
some common-place sentiment, or emphasis to some 
unimportant fact, by his transgression thus both of 
a common rule of propriety and of the law of God, 
he ceases to be, if he ever was at all, a gentleman, 
and becomes a criminal, both before the law of the 
land, which, though it forbids profanity, yet takes 
no notice of the committed crime, and the divine 
law, for the infraction of which he will be punished, 
if not in the present, yet certainly in the future 
world. " The foolish and wicked practice of profane 
cursing and swearing," said the accomplished George 
Washington, "is a vice so mean and low that every 
person of sense and character detests and despises 
it." And it is the well-expressed judgment of an- 
other writer on this subject, that "of all the dark 
catalogue of sins, there is not one more vile and 
execrable than profaneness. It commonly does, 
and loves, to cluster with other sins ; and he who 
can lookup and insult his Maker to His face, needs 
but little improvement in guilt to make him a fin- 
ished devil." 

If, then, it is not gentlemanly, neither is it lady- 
like to swear. A lady swear! How repulsive to 



100 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

all our conceptions of the dignity, gracefulness, and 
bigh-tonedness of such a character, is the idea that 
a lady can swear ! We have heard ladies sing in 
tones that carried us to "the gate ajar," where we 
have lingered to catch, through the crevice, but an 
echo of the harmony that is all divine, but we have 
never heard a lady sivear. 

With other definitions that he gives, the lexi- 
cographer, Webster, says that this (lady) is " a 
term of complaisance ; applied to almost any well- 
dressed woman, but appropriately to one of refined 
manners and education." There is a great deal of 
significance in the only word of this definition which 
Webster, not the writer, has italicised. Unless a 
woman, addicted to this coarse, vulgar vice, though 
never so well-dressed, by some original process, for 
by ordinary methods it is impossible, can demon- 
strate that profanity is an accomplishment, she can- 
not "appropriately" be called a "lady." It con- 
flicts with all our ideas of the softness, amiability, 
and moral worth of woman, to pay her the polite 
deference due to her sex, if she so far demeans her- 
self as to indulge this vice of a foolish tongue. To 
violate the blushing modesty of her sex and the 
sensitive reserve with which nature has endowed 
her, as a safeguard of conduct and character, by 
boldly and coarsely profaning His name who con- 
descended to be born of her as the Redeemer of our 
ruined race, makes the offence in woman seem far 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 101 

more grievous than as committed by the sterner 
sex. Though not peculiar to either sex, yet it is 
certainly more a masculine than a feminine vice ; 
and, if the profanity of a man who pretends to be a 
gentleman exposes him to the condemnation of the 
virtuous, compromises his dignity and lets him down 
to a level with the vilest characters, much more does 
the profanity of a woman who claims to be a " lady" 
degrade her in the eyes of all who admire moral 
worth more than the tinsel and trappings with 
which she adorns her person. 

The fact has always been admitted, that the sen- 
timent of religion is stronger in woman than in man. 
There is abundant historic evidence to support this 
fact. Here and there in the New Testament appear 
such striking instances of the intensity of her re- 
ligous feeling as ought to convince any one who 
cavils at this statement, yet is honestly disposed to 
render " honor to whom honor is due," that St. 
Peter had reference merely to her physical, and not 
to her moral constitution, when he spoke of her as 
being" the weaker vessel."* Our Saviour found 
enemies among men. Men first opposed His gospel. 
Men spat upon Him. Men derided Him. Men 
plaited the crown of thorns and thrust it upon His 
brow. Men pointed and drove the nails that held 
Him to the cross. Men raised it aloft and let it 
down to its place with a thud that sent a quivering 

*1 Pet. iii.7. 



102 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

thrill of pain through the whole network of His 
muscular and nervous system. Men gave Him "vin- 
egar" to drink. Men pierced His side. Enough — 
full enough to kill Him, was all this ; yet, if He had 
not been " already dead," and thus let them have 
occasion to fulfil, unconsciously, an old prophecy, 
men would have broken His bones to finish their 
murderous work. But there is not a single instance 
on record in which woman wounded Him — not so 
much as by an unkind word. Coming unto Him of 
her own accord, without the urging that man's more 
obstinate nature seems to require, she also stood by 
Him, even when "all" His "disciples forsook Him, 
and fled." That any woman, then, should ever ir- 
reverently use any one of the sacred names, either 
of the Father of the Son, or of the Son of God 
himself, to whom in the days of His flesh were thus 
pledged all the tender and heroic affections of her 
nature — names by which His blessed person, peer- 
less character, and infinitely-benevolent mission have 
become known to our ruined race — is an impiety of 
which the whole sex should be ashamed. How much 
more consonant to the religious chords of her nature, 
that respond so easily to the soft touches of love, is 
the spirit that breathes so womanly and devotionally 
through these rhythmical lines — 

' ' God ! I tremble when on Thee I think ; 
I feel as if I shuddered on the brink 
Of profanation — yet I love Thee : read 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 103 

My doubting, fearing heart — it loves indeed ! 
Loves, and should fain obey — O, touch the chord 
That vibrates at Thy name, and tune it, Lord ! 
To reverence and to virtue : all beside — 
The vain desires of folly, or of pride — 
All, all I throw, an offering at Thy feet ; 
Accept that homage, Being Infinite !"* 

It is difficult to conceive what apology a real gen- 
tleman, or lady, could offer for using irreverent or 
vulgar words in social conversation. In cities where 
it is genteel to frequent theatres, there is a large 
class of ambitious youths who indulge this habit 
with a view to dramatic effect. They imagine that 
they evince no little artistic talent if they can but 
reproduce in the parlor, with approximate correct- 
ness, as well the profane and vulgar as the more 
chaste and beautiful recitations of the stage. They 
are artists if they can but render certain passages 
from the wanton pens of dramatic poets nearly or 
quite as well as some immoral "star" actor. Fas- 
cinated by the brilliancy of his elocution, they are 
too stage-struck to apprehend that it is more how 
than what such a masterly tragedian or comedian 
recites that endangers their morals. The very per- 
fection that he evinces of dramatic and elocutionary 
art ensnares them to the use of terms and phrases 
which, without the encouragement of the stage, or 
as heard from the lips of persons of no social status, 
they would never think of repeating. It is one of 

*Sir John Bowring. 



104 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

the vainest, emptiest ambitions that a youth can cul- 
tivate — a youth who is expecting to occupy a promi- 
nent position in society — to take advantage of every 
occasion that offers, to exhibit his deep appreciation 
of, and imagined improvement in, what is so tak- 
ingly called "the histrionic art." And a coterie 
of such "society people," meeting in some parlor, 
not with the view of enjoying an evening's easy, 
natural, and unrestrained intercourse with each 
other, but to "play the actor" — enacting the role 
of the tragedian or comedian, mimicking his vocal 
tones, his tender or bold inflections, his gesticula- 
tions, and interjecting the while between them what- 
ever indelicate phrases and profane expletives be- 
long to "the cast," constitutes "a scene" at which 
even the professional stager would laugh if he could 
see it. If a Forrest, or Booth, took the part of 
eavesdropper on such an occasion, he would hardly 
feel complimented by such a travesty on his profes- 
sion. 

There is no truer exponent of the refinement of 
thought and feeling, without which mere pretences 
to gentility are as easily distinguishable from the 
real thing as the plated from the solid ware, glisten- 
ing in the cases of the jeweler, than purity of 
speech. No man of culture will accept any other 
accomplishment as an equivalent for it. Clean lan- 
guage is no less a component of his finish, and is 
always far more handy for immediate use, than clean 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 105 

linen. He may be as polite and graceful in his 
address as a French dancing-master, yet, if a man 
is less master of his tongue — the most wanton and 
least tractable member of his person — than of his 
arms and legs, he is still short of that proficiency in 
decorum which is instantly suggested by, and is the 
popular meaning of the much-abused name, " gentle- 
man." It is easier to arrogate this title than by 
rigid self-discipline to earn it — such discipline as 
affects more the condition of the inner than the con- 
ventional movements of the outer man. Whether 
or not your friend or acquaintance has fairly earned 
it, is a query which need not long perplex you. If 
you have been feeling uncertain that he wears it 
deservedly or desertlessly, all that you need do, to 
be relieved of your doubt, is to talk familiarly with 
him as you meet him now and then. At the same 
time, if he is just as anxious to know your real 
character, it is alike his right and privilege to do 
the same thing, though, in order to effectiveness, 
each should conceal from the other, for the time 
being, the not unworthy end contemplated by the 
inquisitorial intercourse. 

For natural and spontaneous conversation is a 
key which either one engaged in it unconsciously 
puts in the other's hand, to let him into the secretest 
recesses of his soul — a key which is only the better 
for being invisible, since, when either uses it in the 
other's presence, he can do so without detection. 



106 THE FOLLY OF PROFANIT1 . 

It needs but little genius or quickness of apprehen- 
sion to distinguish, by the use of this key, what he 
is with whom you are talking from what he seems 
to be. Now 7 and then you happen on one who is of 
such a remarkably secretive disposition that there 
are only two parties who can understand him, God 
and himself. As a rule, however, men are not so 
uncommunicative as not to let out of them, from 
time to time, enough of what is in them to satisfy 
you as to their real character, in contradistinction 
to that which, for one purpose or another, they may 
assume. The instances are comparatively rare in 
which, if you are intent upon knowing a man, you 
cannot correctly infer w r hat he is from what consti- 
tutes the burden of his talk. His words diffuse 
about him an ill or pleasant savor as unconsciously 
as a plant or flower, of which by the odor alone the 
botanist can determine to what class it belongs. So 
that you need feel no more uncertain when talking 
with him whether or not you are in close proximity 
to a foul-minded or pure-minded man, than whether 
you are standing in the shadow of the offensive 
ailanthus or of the pleasant magnolia. The savor 
of his language will remove all doubt. His offen- 
sive words betray a man's moral unsoundness as 
unerringly as the offensive breath with which he 
utters them tells that there is some physical organ 
in him that is working corruption. Is it not philo- 



THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 107 

sophically true, that "out of the abundance of the 
heart the mouth speaketh ?"* 

But we will not further anticipate what ought to 
have been reserved, perhaps, for the following chap- 
ter. Let not the reader, if he has not mingled 
much with them, suppose that these strictures on 
the profanity of many of the gentry of our land 
have no basis of fact to sustain them ; or that the 
writer first imagined them guilty of vice, and then 
attempted the thankless kindness of reprover. Let 
him not innocently imagine that the charming 
suavity of address, the choice, select phraseology 
and unexceptionable politeness, which are certainly 
very becoming and admirable in the parlors where 
they socially meet from time to time, are character- 
istic of all professed gentlemen, let them be where 
they may. The testimony of their servants would 
be sufficient to convict not a few of them of this 
ungentlemanly vice elsewhere than in the parlor or 
drawing-room. There is scarcely one into whose 
hands this book may fall, who does not know men in 
high-toned society who for their bad language de- 
serve to be called "gentlemen" far less than many 
less pretentious men who never expect to be dis- 
tinguished by this title, except, perhaps, by the 
merest accident. 

The writer thinks that he performed a good act 
once at least in his life, when he ventured to re- 
* Matt. xii. 34. 



108 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

prove a scion of one of the u first families" for his 
swearing. We were sitting in a barber's chair, 
under the operation of being shaved. The ton- 
sorial artist had just finished the process of lather- 
ing when the sprig of gentility rushed into the room, 
swearing most profusely. Asking the barber to 
stop a moment, we turned to him and said : 

" Do you know what Cowper is said to have writ- 
ten on swearing ?" 

"No, I don't." 

" May I repeat it to you ? " 

" Certainly." 

' ' It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme 
Rudely appealed to for each trifling theme ; 
Maintain your rank ; vulgarity despise ; 
To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise. 
You would not swear upon a bed of death : 
Reflect ; your Maker now could stop your breath." 



CHAPTER V. 

HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 

"^TO sensible person holds that profanity gives im- 
-^-^ portance to conversation. If several persons 
are engaged in familiar talk with each other, and one 
or another interjects, now and then, some vile word 
or irreverent expression, it is not accepted by the 
rest of the company, if they are persons of good 
judgment, as giving credence to the facts which are 
told, or consequence to the statements which are 
made, or edge to the jests which excite their mer- 
riment, or interest to the discussions occasioned by 
incidentally-introduced topics. He who soberly 
argues that swearing gives more vigor to a remark 
angrily made, or makes a witticism carelessly 
spoken more entertaining, or makes more apparent 
the truthfulness of some bold assertion, only betrays 
his ignorance of the inherent and inextinguishable 
power of words — which confession on his part, for 
this it is in effect, should put us on our guard 
against accepting anything he says without some 
examination or inquiry. Instead of giving, an oath 
or blasphemous expletive detracts from, the weight 
of conversation. Has any one who indulges this 
abuse of the tongue in his ordinary intercourse with 
(109) 



110 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

others, ever impressed you as thus proving himself 
a wise man? — a man of excellent judgment? — a 
man competent to give you advice in an emergency ? 
Have you ever felt yourself thus drawn towards 
such an one as being a very discreet or judicious 
friend ? If the reader, finding himself now and 
then under depressing circumstances, needed a little 
toning-up, it is doubtful whether he could find upon 
the lips of such a counselor the moral tonic that he 
needed ; it is very doubtful if he would seek for 
such sympathy as would relieve him of one-half 
of his burden, or such moral support as would re- 
vitalize his lagging energies, in the conversation of 
some habitual, foul-mouthed swearer. 

Though it be a digression from the topic of this 
chapter, yet will the reader here indulge us just 
long enough to protest in general terms that there 
is nothing at all tonic-like in profanity ? The 
power of good, strong words, fitly spoken on appro- 
priate occasions, is immense. The tongue is the 
mighty lever with which the world's great orators 
have moved the sluggish masses to duty — to acts 
and enterprises whose results largely promoted 
directly their own and indirectly the well-being of 
the entire human race. Its utterances, modulated 
by the varied emotions of the speaker, intensified 
by his strong convictions, or mellowed by tender 
thought, are as influential as heat or dew. Stealing 
through his ear into the very soul of the listener, 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. Ill 

like heat, they warm into action latent powers, of 
which he himself may not have been conscious ; or, 
like the dews of night upon vegetation which has 
been wilting all day long under a scorching sun, 
they freshen, invigorate and nerve him for further 
upright, manly service and duty in the world. Nor 
less at home in the conversations of the family or 
social circle than in the pulpit, on the forum, or on 
the platform, are good, choice and apppropriate 
words inspiriting and helpful to every worthy end 
of our being. They are the media through which 
we give to, and receive from each other, sympathy, 
hope, strength, joy and life. How soon would all 
the activities of human life stagnate were the human 
family suddenly deprived of the power of speech. 
The truthfulnesss of these remarks or words, as 
stimulative of life in general, is strikingly illustrated 
by the utterance of the Master respecting spiritual 
life in particular, " the words that I speak unto you, 
they are spirit and they are life."* 

But there is no tonic 'power in profanity. It 
never strengthens resolution. It never inspires the 
faint-hearted with hope. Vociferous curses, or 
great, round, noisy oaths, never, stimulate endeavor, 
or inspire confidence, or strengthen faith in them on 
whom they are pitilessly showered. On the con- 
trary, ten thousand times have they proved destruc- 
tive of budding ambitions, promising expectations, 

*Johnvi. 63. 



112 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

worthy emulations, and moral purposes, especially 
in instances of youths thus cursed by their superiors 
in years yet not in wisdom, as the pelting, merciless 
hail is destructive of the tender, promising vegeta- 
tion of a garden. They are like the hot breath of 
the desert, that wilts whatever green thing it touches. 
Many a youth, maddened by the blasphemous 
imprecations of those in authority over him — an 
employer, or "boss," in whom there was but little 
or no "milk of human kindness" — and sadder still 
becomes the fact we are stating, if it has been his 
own father who thus proved himself not a saviour 
but destroyer of the young — has actually taken 
pains to crush such germs of goodness within his 
nature as, carefully cultivated, might have blos- 
somed ultimately into noble manhood. Many a 
youth who, if the springs of life in his childhood 
had not been befouled by the indecent blasphemies 
of ungodly men, might have become an angel of 
blessing to the world, has thus been fitted to act the 
part of a mischievous, destructive demon. Never, 
indeed — profanity never healthily stimulates but 
surely enervates the powers of the moral man ; while 
there is not one of the myriad of blatant swearers in 
the land who gravely, or without laughing himself at 
the absurdity of the notion, could assert that ic ever 
had the material effect of strengthening the bone, 
sinew and muscle, or of compacting more solidly the 
nervous and fleshly texture of the physical man. 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 113 

It has frequently been observed, and has occa- 
sioned comments not very flattering, that the pro- 
fane, as a rule, lack in moral, and very often as 
well in physical courage. It is but telling the truth 
to call them cowards. Often are they heard blas- 
pheming their Maker, with an assumed fearless 
carriage, as if it would not appall them were the 
very "king of terrors" himself to stalk towards 
them with uplifted blade to fell them to the earth. 
As giving additional seasoning to their profane wit, 
and that their assumed heroism may be supported 
by a laugh from their boon companions, they often 
gratuitously intermingle with their blasphemy sneer- 
ing comments on religion, and the superstitious fears 
of Christians, and the hypocrisy of church members. 
It has amazed us to observe the cool assurance with 
which such men deport themselves ; as if it were a 
certain thing, or that they were not uneasy at all, 
but that this sort of heroism would serve them quite 
as well through, and guarantee, at last, quite as safe 
an exit from this present life, as any religion or 
Christian faith which wiser men profess. But we 
have seen such heroes (?) tremble in fear of the 
results of a little sickness. We have known them 
to dispatch a messenger for the doctor, when some 
good, kind grandmother, with her bunches of dried 
herbs, could have served them quite as well. We have 
known them to walk more rapidly than usual when 
passing some lonely graveyard at night, " whistling" 



114 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

the while "to keep their courage up." And when 
real, huge troubles swept down upon them, fierce 
and terrible as an oriental tempest crashing down 
the valleys of Palestine — a time when the godly are 
made strong by divine answers to their Avhispered 
petition, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than 
I ! " — we have stood by them and pitied their utter 
helplessness, in the moral as well as physical pros- 
tration under which they suffered. 

If we w^ere to look for exceptions to this rule, we 
should not find many even in the military profession, 
which is usually expected to furnish the w^orld with 
the grandest illustrations of what it calls "heroism." 
There are many military chieftains who cannot dis- 
cipline or control their bristling battalions even on 
a simple dress-parade, let alone on the field of actual 
battle, without superadding to their official orders 
the coarsest, most vulgar, and unprofessional oaths 
and imprecations. Over against their successes in 
war, and the great sacrifices which they have made 
for their country — deeds which demand and receive 
the grateful appreciation of the people — stands the 
deplorable fact, which cannot be concealed by the 
glitter of their military personnel, that they are 
very children in the art of self-control. Slaves as 
they are, indeed, to a vice which the wise and 
thoughtful of all ages have united in denouncing as 
the meanest which a man can practice, it directly 
conflicts with our idea of what constitutes real, 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 115 

manly courage, to call them ••heroes." If. not- 
withstanding their inexcusable profanity, the God 

of battles gives them victory on the field of carnage 
now and then, and it may consist with the apprecia- 
tion of the enthusiastic masses — an appreciate 
which but seldom distinguishes between the real and 
the fictitious merits of its subject — to accord to them 
civic hone ~:\ . : : leek their swelling breasts with stars, 
and to issue from the press flattering volumes, en- 
titled ••T/cer Biography of a Hero" yet. lacking the 
moral bravery which best displays itself in seizing 
and throttling one's own vices, in conquering one's 
self — the most dangerous enemy that he can face in 
conflicts of human hie — the mere physical cour- 
age of such canonized generals impresses us as being 
scarcely more admirable than the fury of some roused 
lion. If these (distinguished swearers will accept 
His Word whose holy name thev can so easilv abuse, 
from time to time, as determining the degree of 
merit of which they may fairly boast, they will find 
it there recorded that ,; he that ruleth his spirit is 
ier than he that taketh a city." * 
The real moral cowardice of the profane, and 
notably such as are wont to garnish their speeches 
with frequent allusions to the prince of the infernal 
world, is finelv set forth in Festus. Moralizing on 
Life and Man, in which thoughtful mood he passion- 
ately expresses the wish that he might have been 

*Prov. xvi B2 . 



116 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

the " sun-mind" of the world, Festus, who had 
even "prayed the stars" to give him some clearer 
and more tangible revelation of the invisible power 
which had ever been making itself felt in human 
life, is startled by the unheralded advent of Lucifer ! 
Mistaking his true character, Festus greets, and 
begs to kneel to him. But the infernal spirit for- 
bids it, and takes occasion from this instance of ill- 
directed devotion to ridicule the blatant, braggart 
swearer : 

" Lucifer — Nay, rise ! and I'll not say, for thine own sake, 
That thon dost pray in private to the Devil. 
Festus — Father of lies, thou liest ! 
Lucifer— I am he ; 

It is enough to make the devil merry, 
To think that men call on me momently, 
Deeming me ever dungeoned fast in Hell ; 
Swearers and swaggerers jeer at my name ; 
And oft indeed it is a special jest 
With witling gallants. Let me once appear ! 
Woe's me ! they faint and shudder — pale and 

pray ! 
The burning oath which quivered on the lip, 
Starts back and scars and blisters up the 

tongue ; 
Confusion ransacks the abandoned heart, 
Quells the bold blood, and o'er the vaulted 

brow r 
Slips the white woman-hand. To judgment, 

ho! 
The pivot of the earth seems snapped ; 
And down they drop like ruins to repent. 
Such be the bravery of mighty man."* 

* Festus. Philip James Bailey, Boston, 1838, pp. 32-33. 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 117 

But let us return from this digression. Your 
real good talker, as every observer of the manners 
and morals of good society will tell you — your in- 
teresting talker, who is as truthful as he is enter- 
taining, nor is less sensitive of wounding his friends 
than of violating the truth, and whose presence, 
therefore, is courted for the pleasure his conversa- 
tion affords* — never interlards offensive slang, cant 
phrases, extravagant exclamations, coarse epithets, 
and unmeaning expletives, between his pleasantries. 
He never spurts out words that can neither prove 
good sense on his part, nor please his company. 
He can he brilliant, hut not boorish; he can be 
witty without wickedness ; he can be festive with- 
out foulness ; and, though he may be a little vain of 
his linguistic eminence, yet we can easily tolerate 
this weakness so long as he is not vulgar. Your 
sensible talker, though he lacks such brilliant quali- 
ties as would make him a welcome caller upon any 

* Visitors at the home of the venerable and genial poet, 
John Gr. Whittier, have remarked, in substance, that it 
■was almost equal to a year's schooling in the English 
language, to enjoy one hour's conversation with him. 
His words are so pure, beautiful, simple, and so well 
adapted to whatever topic may be incidentally intro- 
duced — all his expressions, indeed, are so innocent of the 
least term that might offend the taste, either of the scholar 
or of the moralist — that it is really delightful to visit and 
talk with him. Your man of real culture never regards 
profane words as necessary to interesting speech. 



118 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

family circle, or visitor at any club-room, or com- 
panion of travel, regards an oath as no more orna- 
mental to conversation than some unsightly excres- 
cence, such as a hideous wart, or encysted tumor, 
to a face which, otherwise, may be as beautiful as 
the countenance of the Madonna. Impurity of 
speech, in his judgment, is no less an abuse of the 
privilege of conversation, than which none of the 
privileges of human society is more easily abused, 
than an indecent attitude would be an abuse of the 
pleasure of his friend's presence. As full of humor 
as of intelligence, and without repressing in the 
least the ardor of his sociability, your bright, 
ready, interesting talker can enhance the pleasure 
of a company for hours together, and not once 
offend either their religious sentiment, or good sense, 
or pure taste. We can be, entertained even to 
laughter — for we think it no crime, under given cir- 
cumstances, as well to enjoy our natural capacity to 
laugh, as, under other circumstances, to let our 
natural capacity to weep find exercise — we can be 
entertained even to good, hearty laughter, by such 
an intelligent, gentlemanly conversationalist, without 
a single twinge of conscience as to the morality of 
the enjoyment, since in all his talk he observes the 
sound advice of George Herbert : 

" When thou dost tell another's jest, therein 
Omit the oaths, which true wit cannot need ; 
Pick out of tales the mirth, but not the sin ; 
He pares his apple that will cleanly feed/' 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 119 

Logic is not needed to prove that profanity gives 
neither importance nor polish to conversation. This 
is as self-evident as an axiom of mathematics. Not, 
then, to demonstrate, but simply to illustrate both 
this undeniable statement and how the vice may be 
delicately reproved, we shall here reproduce an 
incident which the relator most graphically describes 
as having happened under his own observation. As 
reduction to a less space would but mar the pen- 
picture of the episode that he sketches, the reader 
will not object if we give it in its entirety: 

" On entering the coach at Burlington, I found 
but two passengers. My attention was instantly 
arrested by the appearance of each — the one an 
aged man of unusual size, in a suit of fine black 
cloth, evidently brushed with care. His head was 
partly bald: but the few thin fleeces of shining hair 
were gracefully disposed, and as purely white and 
soft as eider-down. His complexion was ruddy, and 
replete with health — his teeth singularly fine and 
regular for one of his age, which probably was 
seventy — his eyes large and blue, which beamed 
with intellect and benevolence — his linen and cravat 
were somewhat clerical — his cane, suited to his 
weight, was crowned with polished gold, on which 
were engraved his initials and crest, and in his hand 
was a miniature volume of Cicero De Senectute. 
My romance was all on fire : instinct with curiosity, 
I eyed him so intently that the old gentleman's 



120 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

eyelids involuntarily fell ; but, perceiving my con- 
fusion, and even the pain I felt at my unintentional 
rudeness, he soon rallied, and restored me by the 
most courteous address. By this time my attention 
was somewhat diverted to the other, who was a 
youth of seventeen, of such surprising beauty and 
winning manners, so full of the joyousness of the 
aurora of life, and of the ingenuousness of a bliss- 
ful ignorance of the world, that 1 began to imagine 
myself in some region of enchantment. We were 
all strangers to each other, and though of different 
ages and pursuits in life, we soon made acquaint- 
ance, and beguiled our slow passage through the 
shady avenues of the Green Mountain, on this 
lovely summer afternoon, by much delightful con- 
versation, in which the chief interlocutor was the 
venerable gentleman in black. The youth, how- 
ever, participated in his due share, and made many 
just and amiable remarks ; but, to the astonishment 
of us both, and to the manifest pain of the Conscript 
Father, he sivore like a trooper! and yet with tones 
so sweet, and in a manner so naive, as evidently 
proclaimed it a mere habit, in which his heart and 
head seemed in no degree to participate. The old 
gentleman related an hundred anecdotes ; and, in 
the most pleasing and popular manner, discoursed 
of the wonders of botany, and of the mineral world ; 
of the sublime curio sa in astronomy ; of the hidden 
glories revealed to us by the microscope; of the 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 121 

beauties of crystallization ; of the evidences of de- 
sign unfolded by optics, especially in the structure 
of the eye ; of the merely relative nature of time 
and space, and that these probably appertain to 
man alone ; and that, if the visible universe could 
be compressed into a ball an inch in diameter, why 
may we not imagine myriads of years embraced as 
it were, by a moment! And in this delightfully 
pious and instructive vein he continued to beguile 
the otherwise wearisome hours. The sun, at length, 
was fast declining ; the richest perfumes emanated 
from the surrounding woods and flowers, which 
bordered on our way ; and somewhat exhausted by 
the many hours of conversation, each seemed wil- 
ling to repose, for a while, in a corner of the car- 
riage, and all gave tokens that they would sleep. 
But I perceived the old gentleman occasionally 
opened his eyes, cast a yearning look of affection 
on the. youth, then closed them with a sigh! He 
at length broke the silence ; our slumber instantly 
left us, and we were again all attention. Looking 
out upon the scenery, as we were descending the 
mountain into a rich valley, 'What,' said the old 
gentleman, 'can surpass (bottle, pot, and glass') the 
solemn and majestic (bottle, pot, and glass) gloom 
of the surrounding mountains! (bottle, pot, and 
glass :) the pensive silence of the groves ! (bottle, 
pot, and glass:) the pastoral simplicity (bottle, 
pot, and glass) of the cottages, (bottle, pot, and 
6 



122 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

glass:') or the wild luxuriancy (bottle, pot, and 
glass) of the meadows! How pleasing is it to con- 
template (bottle, pot, and glass) the noble spirit 
of perseverance (bottle, pot, and glass) which has 
enabled the husbandman to climb (bottle, pot, and 
glass) the highest mountains, and change the rude 
garb of nature (bottle, pot, and glass) for the rich 
habiliments of cultivation (bottle, pot, and glass). 
How pleasing to behold (bottle, pot, and glass) the 
verdant hills rising amphitheatrically around, (bot- 
tle, pot, and glass;) to observe the progressive in- 
fluence of the departing sun on the distant moun- 
tains, (bottle, pot, and glass :) or the bright orb 
of day rising in the pride of his splendor, (bottle, 
pot, and glass,) gilding with his ruddy light, and 
chasing from the trees (bottle, pot, and glass) the 
fogs fantastically formed on their lofty tops ! (bottle, 
pot, and glass.) Who that hath a soul for nature's 
beauties (bottle, pot, and glass) would refuse to 
bow it down in worship and gratitude (bottle, pot, 
and glass) to the great Author of so much loveli- 
ness? (bottle, pot, and glass.) 9 Here the old man 
ceased, closed his eyes, and again sunk into his cor- 
ner. With mingled astonishment and heartfelt pain 
the youth and myself exchanged looks, and sighed 
expressively ; recognizing in each other's eye the 
deep conviction that this delightful old man was, 
after all, a victim of mental derangement ! In a few 
minutes, however, he opened his eyes, looked at the 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 123 

youth so benignantly, and so naturally, that we again 
exchanged looks of recognition that there must be 
some concealed and pregnant meaning in this strange 
departure from his Mentorian character. ' Dear sir,' 
said the youth, 'I hope you are not unwell; and 
may I ask, what did you mean by all that about the 
" bottle, pot, and glass?"' 'My amiable young 
friend,' replied the old gentleman, 'you may well 
express surprise ; but what did you mean, during 
the five hours of our agreeable conversation, by 
your numerous swearing expletives? Amidst all 
of your good sense, and sound observations for one 
of your age, why did you take God's holy name in 
vain, more than an hundred times ? — why did you 
use more than thrice that number of times words 
quite as senseless and unconnected with your dis- 
course as my ' bottle, pot, and glass ' were, in mine ? 
I thus spoke to show you visibly and audibly, as it 
were, the extreme folly of swearing, and how purely 
expletive are such words, and how ill-suited to the 
dignity of man, and especially painful when uttered 
by youthful lips ! God hath endowed us with lan- 
guage for the most delightful of all communions — 
for the sole purpose of conveying our thoughts : and 
when we violate that purpose by such foreign mate- 
rials, we offend no less against religion than good 
taste.' The youth burst into tears. 'Sir,' said 
he, ' I revere all you say, and here solemnly pledge 
myself never again to use such unmeaning language. 



124 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

I now see its real odiousness and folly for the first 
time in my life ; and shall be ever thankful for your 
admonition.' The impressions sank deep into his 
heart, and he has kept his word. The old gentleman 
has long since been gathered to his fathers. The 
youth is now a man, and as eminent for his virtues 
as he then seemed to be for his personal beauty."* 
If the amiable youth thus ingeniously and effect- 
ually cured of this unlovely vice could have seen 
his "discourse," with its " hundred" shocking 
oaths, and "thrice that number" of unnecessary, 
unornamental, irrelevant expletives, in print, doubt- 
less he would have read it with even more " aston- 
ishment and heartfelt pain " than he felt on discov- 
ering, as at first he supposed, that the old gentleman 
in the coach with him w r as a maniac. His tears but 
proved the depth of his shame. There are ten 
thousand swearers whose cheeks w^ould pale, and 
pulse quicken, and hands tremble, and, as they read 
it, whose tongues would falter, if, at sunset, some 
one handed them a slip of paper on which had been 
printed, with clear-cut type, and with such charac- 
ters as might represent emphasis, inflection, and 
intonation, all the oaths of a single day, — all the 
blasphemies and indecent words which they had 
spoken since sunrise. Nor would it lessen their 

* Miscellaneous Thoughts on Men, Manners, and Things, 
By Anthony Grumbler, of Grumbleton Hall, Esquire : Bal- 
timore, 1837, pp. 358-362. 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 125 

agitation to be told, that such minutes of their 
wonted language, or record of their guilty words, 
had been kept daily, from their youth to the present 
time, and that they were even stereotyped — stereo- 
typed beyond the possibility of destruction even by 
the fires of " the last day." It is not an empty 
poetic figment, or splendid paradox, which has been 
expressed by an eloquent writer, * extravagant only 
in limiting perpetuity to them alone, that" words 
are the only things that last forever." If they 
are as intangible, they are, too, as inextinguishable 
as the mind that makes them the medium of its 
thought. Very significant of this more than poetic 
sentiment is the positive declaration of the Master. 
As if deeming it unnecessary to predicate everlast- 
ingness of the good words spoken by men, since 
they themselves are not apt to forget them, He 
aims, apparently, to correct the false impression 
of many, that bad words become extinct with the 
breath that utters them: — "But I say unto you, 
that every idle word that men shall speak, they 
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." f 
The spirit of words is as immortal as the soul that 
reveals its likeness, whether of beauty or of de- 
formity, through them. 

" Words are mighty, words are living — serpents with their 
venomed stings, 

* William Hazlett. 
f Matt. xii. 36. 



126 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Or bright angels crowding round us, with heaven's light 

upon their wings ; 
Every word has its own spirit, true or false, that never 

dies; 
Every word man's lips have uttered lives on record in the 

skies." 

At first easy and indifferent to what he said in 
answer to the examination of " bloody bishop Bon- 
ner," the martyr Latimer, hearing the scratching 
of some invisible pen, became more chary of his 
words. A hint, this, which it w T ould be wise for 
them to act upon who, as utterly mindless of their 
speeches as of the record which God makes of them, 
may come to believe, too late for any practical use 
that could be made of the startling truth, that 
" words are * * things that last forever !" 

Assuming that the swearer agrees with the writer 
that his profanity adds nothing either to the import- 
ance or to the polish of his conversation, we think 
that we can also make it plain to him that it never 
strengthens or confirms Ms veracity. It is no 
proof of truthfulness. It is no sign of sincerity. 
It begets in other minds, not confidence in the 
swearer, or belief of his assertions, but suspicions 
of his honesty, or mistrust of his statements. If it 
evinces anything* at all, besides the depravity that 
prompts it, it has all the appearance of evidence 
that the swearer himself regards his own utterances 
as not credible unless they are accompanied by some 
profane demonstration. If he thus suspects himself, 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 127 

or confesses, in effect, that what he says cannot be 
believed unless he superadds to it an oath, certainly 
he should not blame others if they also suspect his 
truthfulness. 

It is sometimes doing a man a .great wrong to 
treat him in strict accordance with his own ex- 
pressed or implied estimate of himself. It would 
contribute more to his interests or well-being, 
quietly to ignore his own innocent idiosyncrasies, 
and treat him in accordance with the average judg- 
ment that his friends and acquaintances have formed 
of him. But* how shall we treat the swearer, under 
this unfavorable aspect of his sin? If in making 
assertions of one kind or another, he expects to be 
believed only as he mingles needless blasphemies 
with them, shall we accept the alternative which 
such an expectation involves, whether it be ex- 
pressed or simply implied it matters not, that he is 
falsifying when he does not swear to what he says ? 
This certainly would deeply wound him ; while if 
we believe what he says because he swears to it, we 
not only deeply wound our Maker, in that we en- 
courage what He has solemnly and threateningly 
forbidden, but we also concede, in effect, as being 
true, what common sense teaches is false, that pro- 
fanity is a test of truthfulness. In minds which 
have properly estimated its baseness and guiltiness, 
and are sensitively watchful against all sorts of 
falsehood and ever jealous of the truth, it always 



128 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

excites at least grave doubt, if not real disbelief, 
of their veracity who are in the habit of using it. 
Since it is oftener used to confirm a rash or doubt- 
ful saying than a plain fact or truth, the swearer 
himself cannot complain if we believe him not the 
more, but the less, because he swears to what he 
says. However strong the emphasis, and demon- 
strative other incidental accompaniments of his 
manner of utterance, yet the gross sin he commits 
impresses upon our mind the conviction that he is 
not sincere. 

How can I believe that he who is false to his 
Maker is true to me ? If he has so little respect for 
Him that, when telling me some trivial thing w r hich 
he wishes me to believe, he can coolly blaspheme 
the Almighty in order to give weight to his words, 
is it at all probable that he has so much more respect 
for it that he will not violate the truth ? Consider- 
ing the fact that there are many more and stronger 
temptations to lie than to swear, we can hardly be 
convinced that, if he yields so easily to the latter, 
he will not as easily yield to the former, as circum- 
stances may make it expedient. Broad, then, as the 
statement may seem, that a man who swears will 
lie, and condemnatory of many who will resent the 
inference as charging on them another vice not 
much less dishonorable than profanity, yet, if it be 
not based on facts, or if it appear to the reader as 
but a false conclusion from false premises, it remains 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 129 

for him to prove its unreasonableness, or untruth- 
fulness; let him expose the sophistry, if such it be. 
Far less flattering than sound and true is the advice 
of the quaint Francis Quarles, "Trust not to the 
promise of a common swearer; for he that dare sin 
against his God for neither profit nor pleasure, will 
trespass against thee for his own advantage. He 
that dare break the precepts of his Father, will 
easily be persuaded to violate the promise unto his 
brother." For thus encouraging the feeling of sus- 
picion or distrust towards him, the swearer ought 
not to be offended at any one but himself. It is his 
own fault that others cannot think him truthful be- 
cause he swears. Rev. Dr. Parker of London re- 
cently counseled a large audience to "have no faith 
in any man who is irreverent, for reverence is the 

basis of all that is noble and tender in character." 

i 

There are very many good people who are not 
severe in their judgment of what are simply weak- 
nesses or failings in other men's character, yet to 
whom the habitual swearer thus appears as not being 
an honest man. They not only cannot confide in 
him as not being truthful, but they will not trust 
him in a position that would test his honesty. If 
two young men of equal business qualities, one of 
whom was a swearer and the other was not, applied 
to them for some position or office of trust, it would 
not take them a moment to determine which of the 
twain they would employ. Short and decisive, and 
6* 



130 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

as humiliating to him as unsatisfactory, would be 
their argument against engaging the profane appli- 
cant : " If he can so easily, or on the most incidental 
occasions, blaspheme his Maker, he would not hesi- 
tate, for some trifling thing, to curse me; and if he 
cursed me, what guarantee could he give that he 
would not rob me ? Between his profanity and my 
suspicion of his lack of honesty, the relation that we 
held to each other as employer and employe cer- 
tainly could not be a pleasant one : and so it would 
be better to have nothing to do with a common 
swearer." This is the easy, summary, and no one 
can argue that it is not reasonable, method with 
which many business men dispose of such applicants 
for their favor as are known to be profane. 

None who has read of Howard, the distinguished 
philanthropist, could justly charge him with unmerci- 
fulness, or a lack of kind consideration towards 
the guilty. He spent his life, after his appoint- 
ment, in 1773, to the office of high sheriff of Bed- 
ford, England, in most persistent inquiries into the 
condition of criminals and their experiences of 
prison-life The deep practical interest in them 
which sent him, not only from, one to another till he 
had visited and minutely examined every prison in 
his own country, but even abroad, " to remember 
the forgotten," as one who knew him well finely 
expressed it, " to attend to the neglected, to visit 
the forsaken, and to compare and collate the dis- 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 131 

tress of all men in all countries," made him better 
acquainted with the causes and relations of crime, 
the intimate connection that obtains between human 
vices, than any other man of his age. Yet the 
High Sheriff of Bedford, John Howard, would 
never trust a swearer. It is related of him, that, 
standing once in a crowd near a post-office, he heard 
a man uttering a volley of oaths. " Look to your 
pockets," he cried aloud, buttoning up his own 
tightly, " always take care of your pockets when 
you find yourself among swearers. He who will 
take God's name in vain will think little of taking 
your purse, or doing anything else that is evil." 

This is but another way of saying, that a man 
who swears ivill steal — a statement which, like one 
on a preceding page, will not seem more severe 
than true, to the profane, if they will but thought- 
fully consider that the sins, or vices, which man so 
willingly, and often very blindly, indulges, are so 
leagued together that he cannot patronize one with- 
out encouraging all of them. They constitute a 
confederacy of evil, the object of which is to ruin 
him. Fathered by the Prince of Darkness, they 
are a fraternity, intimate fellowship with one of 
which identifies him with the whole order. If he 
is voluntarily so wicked as to swear, is it at all 
probable that he is too conscientious to lie ? And 
if with little or no provocation, he can so easily 
swear and lie, is it a very unlikely thing, that he 



132 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

would steal ? And if he is voluntarily so wicked that 
he swears, and lies, and steals, is it credible that 
he is so morally pure that he would not commit 
audultery, or fornication ? If he thus encourages 
one vice after another, and offers, from time to time, 
no resistance to temptation, it would hardly startle 
us to hear that he had committed, too, the crime 
of forgery. And if he has become so desperate 
as to commit forgery, to relieve the wants created 
by a licentious life, is it a suggestion too shocking 
to be entertained, that, actuated by the same feeling 
of desperation, he would murder a fellow-man? 
The relation that subsists thus between the vices 
that disgrace human nature, is very intimate. Nor 
does it argue against this view of their intimacy of 
association, that all sinners are not equally guilty 
of all sins. Every one carries in his fallen nature 
the germs of every sin that man has ever com- 
mitted. Many have not made themselves flagrantly 
guilty of all known sins, solely through fear of 
civil arrest, conviction, and consequent punishment. 
Others are apparently, or comparatively, innocent 
simply through want of opportunity to sin. And, 
thanks be unto Him for the distinction, it is only 
the grace of God that makes the best men to differ 
from the impenitent guilty — grace that first regen- 
erates, and then enables them to lead blameless 
lives. 

It is dangerous, then, to encourage any vice. If 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 133 

the moral sense be forced to take but one, as it 
were, under its patronage, all the rest of the fra- 
ternity will persistently clamor for its auspices. No 
poet ever wrote truer lines than these — 

"'Tis fearful building upon any sin; 

One mischief enter' d brings another in ; 

The second pulls a third, the third draws more ; 

And they for all the rest set ope the door ; 

Till custom takes away the judging sense, 

That to offend, we think it no offence."* 

But of all the vices, against the indulgence of 
which the young should be specially warned as con- 
stituting the beginnings of a criminal life, in the 
judgment of the writer there is none so dangerous 
as foul or irreverent speech. We would give neither 
lying nor petty larceny precedence in this respect. 
Our words react upon ourselves. Their effect upon 
ourselves is no less appreciable than their effect 
upon others. The sound of his own voice as it 
touches his own ears stimulates a child, just begin- 
ning to talk, to repeat the unaccustomed words 
which he attempted. Many an orator, attempting 
the highest flights of eloquence, has been stirred to 
the effort as much by the tones of his own voice — 
the inspiring sentiment clothed in his own words — 
as by the plaudits of his audience. Responding to 
the inspiration of her own musical rhythm, the 
prima donna excels herself, while her admirers 

* William Smith. 



134 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

listen with rapt attention; if there were no reac- 
tion of her song upon herself, from time to time, 
she would never have become distinguished as a 
musical artist. Our own words thus make us what 
we are, or what Ave aspire to. Their reflective is 
not the least force that attaches to them. Soft, 
kind words not only make others amiable towards 
us, but their reactive effect is to deepen the etching 
of love's image on our own souls. Angry words 
not only madden others, but they are, as well, the 
fuel with which the angry one keeps his own wrath 
ablaze. Vulgar and obscene words return to, and 
re-impress upon, the wanton imagination the foul 
ideas they express, as certainly as the echoes of the 
bad words themselves, if spoken in some resonant 
cavern or grotto, would startle the speaker's ears. 
For this reason, then, we insist that there is no vice 
indulged in by a youth that should be more peremp- 
torily forbidden, or that should be more carefully 
prevented, if possible, by those who have authority 
over him, than that of swearing. Every oath that 
he utters, be the motive or feeling what it may that 
prompts it, recoils upon himself, in that it wears 
away that reverence for sacred things of which, 
when one has entirely rid himself, he " will think 
little," as John Howard says, "of doing anything 
else that is evil." 

As compared with other faults of conversation 
there is none at once so inexcusable and criminal as 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 135 

profanity. We are utterly unable to suggest any 
motive, reason, or circumstance that might justify 
it. That a man should persist in interjecting favor- 
ite foreign words in his talks with you is not an 
unpardonable offence. It is a violation, not of the 
moral law, but simply of literary taste. He has 
been abroad, perhaps, and has been sedulously cul- 
tivating the twang of the French, or practicing Ger- 
man gutturals, and, like the professional breeder 
who claims that, in order to the production of the 
best stock, there must be an admixture of different 
families, he innocently imagines that, in order to 
the best elocution, there must be a minofle-mano'le 
of different tongues. Or, it may be, that he has 
never been very far from home, that he was born 
and bred among, and still mingles with, a class of 
rustics whose vocabulary has never been submitted 
to critical revision by some learned, cultured lex- 
icographer, or " Professor of Anglo-Saxon," which 
fact might explain and extenuate his free use of 
provincialisms in his conversation. Or, nature has 
endowed him with a large imagination, which may 
account for his habit, if he be given to it, of exag- 
geration. There may be, too, a good deal of the 
pugnacious in his moral temperament, so that he 
can not talk very long with you, even on the most 
trivial subject, without betraying the spirit of con- 
tradiction. Or, if he be given to volubility, and 
your friendliness towards him forbids you to recall, 



136 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

and moralize on the appositeness of the trite maxim, 
" it is the empty wagon that makes the loudest 
noise," yet you can take the more amiable view of 
his fault, that it proceeds from an open, communi- 
cative disposition, and that he talks a great deal 
simply because he has a great deal to say. If his 
conversation be marred by none of these blemishes, 
yet it may be obnoxious to the charge of prolixity 
which, if it were, though a distinguished philologist 
says it is " not always tedious," is still but a fault, 
not a crime And if there be, as well, no little 
display of pedantry in his manner, yet we can 
tolerate even this, if he can but express an original 
idea, or tell us something that we had never heard 
before. 

Of all these minor faults, one or more of which 
appears in nearly every one's conversation whom 
we happen upon in the street, or meet in the social 
circle, either some reason sufficient, if not to justify, 
at least to make them tolerable, or some true ex- 
planation which, if offered even in a jocular tone, or 
with a view to a little innocent merriment over it, 
would lose none of its force, may be given. If they 
are transgressions of conventional rules, enacted by 
the cultured for the perfecting of conversation as an 
art — an end not unfrequently gained at no small 
cost, since, if art be allowed to control conversa- 
tion, it runs the risk of losing its soul, naturalness — 
yet, excepting the habit of exaggeration which, in- 



HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 137 

dulgecl too freely, becomes real falsehood, there is 
no moral sniilt incurred by them. But of the greater 
fault, profanity — the blot with which many who 
pretend to considerable culture befoul their talk, 
from time to time — there can be given no satisfac- 
tory explanation. In all honesty, they who are 
guiltv of it must concede with the writer, that — 

It never gives importance to conversation ; 

It has no tonic-like property ; 

It is no evidence of courage, moral or physical ; 

It is not ornamental to conversation, or it gives no polish 

to it: 
It never assures us of the swearer's veracity ; 
It is no evidence of honesty ; 
It is intimately related to all other vices ; 
It is the most dangerous of all vices ; and 
It is the most inexcusable and criminal of all the faults of 

conversation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 

r I ^HERE is no reasonable excuse for profanity. 
-*- If there be found any real pleasure in the 
indulgence of other bad habits, yet certainly from 
this there can be derived not the least positive en- 
joyment. If, to the satisfaction, not of the writer, 
since, as is evident from the pages of this essay, 
his judgment of the horrid vice, in all its aspects 
and relations to one's well being, is already formed, 
but of any three intelligent men whom he himself 
may select — men who can detect the difference 
between an argument and a jest, since there are so 
many who can scarcely discuss the vice without 
some display of wit, and, too, who are not biased 
in the least by religious or Christian views of the 
offence: — if, to the satisfaction of such competent 
arbiters, any swearer on this wide earth can demon- 
strate that there is any real, positive enjoyment or 
pleasure experienced in the act or habit of swearing, 
the writer will engage himself to repudiate, as pub- 
licly as he now makes this challenge, his present 
decisive judgment of the vice. Such a philosoph- 
ical swearer, if successful in his attempted demon- 
stration, might well claim the reward which an old 
(138) 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 139 

sage once offered to the discoverer of a " new 
pleasure." 

Many and very weak are the apologies which the 
swearer offers for his offence. He often pleads 
habit as extenuating, and almost as justifying it. 
He swears because, somehow or other, he " got 
into the habit of doing it, and cannot more easily 
break off from it." From his semi-confessional 
tone — his light, indifferent manner of speaking of 
it — it is presumable that he considers the criminality 
of the vice as comparatively small, because it has 
become to him habitual. Let us, then, examine this 
plea. 

Is the guilt or enormity of an offence against God 
or man lessened by its repetition ? Does God or 
man, in the discipline of moral government, regard 
the violation of law as becoming less and less an 
offence or transgression, the longer or more fre- 
quently such violations are committed? If it be 
found on his trial at the bar that a man has been an 
habitual thief, does he, therefore, deserve more 
mercy and less condemnation, and, hence, a milder 
punishment, than if he had committed the crime of 
theft but once or twice in his previous life ? A man 
is arraigned for forgery. It is in evidence before 
court and jury that he has long been cultivating the 
imitation of other men's autographs, and has often 
used his art for illegal purposes. Will his counsel, 
then, plead this fact, that unfortunately he had fallen 



140 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

into the habit of imitating other men's names, as 
extenuating or lessening his client's guilt, and there- 
fore his punishment, if he deserved any at all, should 
be as light as possible ? Shouts of laughter from 
grave judges, sober jurors, and interested spectators 
would greet the learned counsel presenting such a 
burlesque of logic and laAV for their serious con- 
sideration. 

It is not the last but the first offence against the 
laws of the land, in respect of which the judgment 
of the court is often moderated or softened by ex- 
tenuating circumstances. In consideration, per- 
chance, of the prisoner's youthfulness, and of the 
fact that it is his " first offence," he receives mercy 
as well as judgment from the bench, in that his sen- 
tence is made as light as the law will allow. But 
after serving out his term of imprisonment, let him 
repeat the offence again and again, which is not an 
unusual thing w T ith criminals, before he is again 
arrested, and on his arraignment and conviction again 
at the bar of justice, he shall find, that in the judg- 
ment of the law, as expressed by the court, and 
endorsed by the jury, his habit of transgression has 
made him obnoxious to the severest penalty which 
that violated law prescribes for it. 

Habit, then, neither excuses the practice nor lessens 
the guilt of sin. Every repetition of a vice increases 
the sinner's guilt, and, it is true, lessens, but does not 
destroy, his power of will to resist it. It is sad to 



IXEXCUSABLEXESS OF THE VICE. 1-il 

know that vices thus can at length bind the human 
soul as with hempen cords. Every indulgence 
weaves another thread in them — one after another 
as the sinful thing is repeated — till no blade less 
keen than " the sword of the Spirit" can cut them in 
twain and release the soul from its bondage. In- 
dulging an evil habit for years, without attempting 
to correct it, you become a prisoner with but little, 
if any, hope of release from prison; and that habit 
is your jailor, stern, watchful, rigid and severe in 
his exactions — a jailor, commissioned by yourself 
to keep you in " durance vile." A man who never 
exerts himself to arrest the development of a vice 
in his life or character, becomes at length, indeed, 
a slave. The slave-driver — his vice, whatever it 
may be — may be hated, yet no hatred in the driven 
slave shall make his master lenient or merciful. 
With his manhood sacrificed thus to the whims of 
such a master, his consciousness of dignity, as hav- 
ing been made in the image of God, destroyed, and 
even his sense of shame dissipated, what a sad, 
humiliating condition for a rational, intelligent hu- 
man being to fall into ! If this be one of the sad 
results of indulged vice in this life, to say nothing 
of its fearful consequences in the life to come, how 
careful should we be to guard against its beginnings ! 

"O, tlie dangerous siege 
Sin lays about us ! And the tyranny 
He exercises. * * * * 



142 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Like to the horror of a winter's thunder, 

Mixed with a gushing storm that suffers nothing 

To stir abroad on earth but its own rages, 

Is sin, when it hath gathered head above us ; 

No roof, no shelter will secure us so, 

But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe."* 

But more ; no swearer can truthfully plead as an 
excuse for his vice that it is constitutional. Some 
sinners there are who challenge our pity more than 
others. Not for any adventitious circumstances 
which determine their social condition as being more 
degraded than that of others, though this alone is 
enough to excite the pity of thoughtful minds, but 
that they evince a stronger and more ungovernable 
natural tendency to certain vices than others. If 
they actually are not, yet they seem to be more 
naturally depraved than others. While it does not 
excuse their commission of certain sins, since no ex- 
cuse for any sin by any sinner can be valid, so long 
as the power of divine grace is available as a help 
to its prevention, to say, that the inherent propensity 
to them is so much stronger and more arbitrary in 
them than in other persons, and, hence, is much less 
easily overcome, yet, should not this fact, if not 
soften our judgment of their guiltiness, at least ex- 
cite in us the deeper sympathy for them ? The 
animal, for instance, predominates in some persons 
so largely over the rational; or, in other words, 

* George Chapman. 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 143 

there is such a mighty preponderance of force in 
them towards the sensual — a disadvantage which 
the physiologist will not explain as being due only 
to cultivation, on the part of the individual, since 
he knows that it is as w T ell hereditary — that if they 
succeed in living a pure life, in face of the huge 
opposition of their over-balanced nature, they merit 
a reward that none on earth can give them, since no 
parties but God and themselves are, or could be 
cognizant of their fearful struggles between "the 
flesh and the spirit." If, however, overcome by 
the passion that agitates them so deeply as almost 
to make them think that they are subjects of de- 
moniacal possession, they fall into sin, and thus 
bring upon themselves shame and disgrace, do they 
not deserve, in view of the above-stated disadvan- 
tageous fact concerning them, less censure from 
those who do not understand them than they are 
wont to receive? 

There are some drunkards who, more than others, 
command our deepest pity. Though their intem- 
perance cannot be justified by any consideration, 
yet it is far less censurable than the inebriacy of 
other men or women. Their passion for strong 
drink is more hereditary than incidentally and fool- 
ishly acquired. It was in them at their birth, de- 
scending to them as a special inheritance of evil 
from an intemperate parent. Here and there, 
throughout the land, there are asylums in operation 



144 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

where the intemperate are treated as the subjects 
of disease. The managers of those institutions 
formulate their treatment of the "patients" in ac- 
cordance with the theory that intemperance is more 
a disease of the physical than a vice chargeable on 
the moral man. Believing that this theory rests on 
some basis of fact, and without venturing a judg- 
ment as to how much or how little such "patients" 
or subjects of the physical "disease" of intemper- 
ance are, hence, morally accountable for the malady 
itself and all its evil results — a query which we will 
leave to more competent casuists to answer — we 
cannot help, therefore, but pity some, while, for 
reasons which it would be needless here to detail, 
we cannot help but blame other drunkards. 

While, then, to some human vices there are 
stronger and more violent natural propensities in 
some persons than in others — a fact which, though 
it never excuses the practice of such vices, yet may 
reasonably be urged as sufficient to beget in us feel- 
ings towards certain sinners more merciful than con- 
demnatory — yet, what swearer who knows anything 
of the organism of his own nature will plead, as ex- 
plaining and extenuating his bad habit, that there 
w T as born in and with him a strong, overpowering, con- 
stitutional tendency to the vice ? The passions and 
appetites of our human nature, the wise regulation 
of which by the letter and spirit of revelation in- 
sures the end of our being, are ever craving grati- 



IXEXCUSABLEXESS OF THE VICE. 145 

fieation. In one or another, or in the combination 

of one with another, silently works the excitement 
that prompts us to every act and movement of our 
life. Denying them their appropriate gratifications, 
the result is discontent, restlessness, indeed, wretch- 
edness. But whoever found it a mortification of 
any appetite of the physical or passion of the moral 
man to deny himself the use of profane language ? 
Who that is not given to this habit has ever felt 
that in abstaining from it he was sacrificing some 
good which his nature craved in order to his happi- 
ness ? Deeply depraved as we believe it to be, yet, 
singularly indeed, it disowns this vice, in that it 
never mediately or directly tempts the sinner to its 
commission. 

But further ; there are men who seem to think, 
not merely that they cannot " easily" rid them- 
selves of this " habit" of swearing, as before stated, 
but that they " cannot do iV at all. How utterly 
absurd is the notion that a person in the full posses- 
sion of his rational faculties cannot refrain from 
using certain terms or phrases! If you heard a 
man repeating from day to day, and to whomsoever 
he met, certain strange, unmeaning expressions, you 
would consider him as being crazy. The writer not 
unfrequently meets a man who, as a soldier in the 
late war, made a greater sacrifice for his country 
even than that of life. He entered the service as 
sound, mentally, as any volunteer in the ranks. 
7 



146 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

But disease, resulting from the hardships and expo- 
sure incident to soldier-life, fastened its fangs upon 
his brain, so that he was discharged at length, for- 
ever bereft of the glory of man — his reason. When 
we meet him, from time to time, it moves our deep- 
est sympathy; nor is it any test at all of our patience, 
to stand a while and hear him repeat the same 
meaningless words which he obliges every one to 
hear who gives him a moment's time. The reason 
of our respectful attitude towards him is that he is 
demented. 

But we cannot hear with respectful patience or 
patient respectfulness a man who, though perfectly 
sane, will yet offer as a reason for not giving up a 
habit of using bad language that he " cannot do it." 
This unmanly pretext for swearing might just as 
reasonably be urged as excusing other vices — all 
the vices, indeed, named in the calendar of crime. 
If a man addicted to lying should say to you, that 
he " cannot quit" it, his excuse might excite in you 
the feeling of ridicule, but not the belief that he 
was telling you the truth — you would at once accept 
such a plea as but illustrating his besetting sin. If 
a dishonest man should say to you, that he "cannot 
break off" from his habit of dishonesty, that he 
must steal, or cheat, or defraud his fellow-men, you 
might think that possibly he was a monomaniac, or 
kleptomaniac ; but it would be far more probable to 
your judgment of his responsibility that he "can- 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 147 

not" because he will not. There are a thousand 
things that men "cannot" do simply and only be- 
cause they will not. 

It will be found, as a rule, that the conduct of 
such swearers as plead that they " cannot break 
off" the habit, while in the presence of persons who 
would be offended at their profanity — notably so 
when in the presence of ministers of the gospel — 
belies their unmanly excuse. Then not an indecent 
or profane word escapes their lips. Their unexcep- 
tional language on such occasions, while ordinarily 
their mouths are full of cursing, is at once a tacit 
confession on their part of the criminality of the vice 
in question, and a proof that they can abstain from 
it. Not till the swearer can satisfactorily prove 
that the system of vocal organs which his Creator 
located in him just under the brain, where reason, 
ruling as upon a throne, might ever have it directly 
under its eye, is nothing but an automatic machine, 
curiously interlaced, indeed, with his muscular self, 
yet over which he has no control, or that works 
without his personal superintendence, can we believe 
that he believes himself, when he says that he 
" cannot quit swearing." 

"But I never swear, unless I am angry." Is it 
not madness indeed, when some one angers you, to 
insult your Maker ? It is worse than that of the 
maniac who must be bound with strong cords lest he 
commit some act of violence, for yours is the mad- 



148 THE EOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

ness of a man who has not lost his reason. How 
has He made himself a party to your petty quarrel 
with some one, who, perhaps, is no more to blame, 
in the matter at issue, than yourself? If there has 
been no interference, humanly speaking, on His 
part, with your little affairs, why should you wound 
your Maker for some offence committed against 
you, or indignity offered you, by man? This is as 
irrational and wicked as to stab your father, or 
murder your mother, because some other person 
has hurt you. 

The moral madness that actuates men, when ex- 
cited by anger, and often when only slightly irri- 
tated or vexed by trivial things, to blaspheme the 
Almighty, is not less criminal than foolish. It is 
but trifling with or making light of a terrible crime, 
to say half-apologetically, that "under such circum- 
stances it is instinctive to say something ." If 
what is " instinctive " is, therefore, excusable, the 
Master would have condemned neither the thought 
of adultery nor the feeling of hatred ; for both 
thought and feeling are " instinctive" to man. As 
when a man thinks — an act which is not less an 
impulse of nature than the act of breathing — if he 
allows his thought to revel in the impure, he be- 
comes guilty ; or, as when a man, who, feeling that 
he has been injured by another — a feeling that one 
cannot prevent when there is real occasion for it — 
lets that feeling work in him such hatred or enmity 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 149 

towards the offender as would prompt him, if he 
had the opportunity, to take vengeance on him, 
and who thus makes himself guilty, in effect, of 
murder, so when a man speaks, or " says some- 
thing," under circumstances calculated to excite his 
anger or mere irritability of temper, if that " some- 
thing " should be some vulgar oath or profane ex- 
pletive, it cannot relieve him of the imputation of 
guilt, to plead that he uttered it instinctively. It 
is not a necessity of his nature that his anger or 
mere vexation must have profane oral expression, 
in order to his relief. If he really entertains this 
notion — if he is not merely jesting when he offers 
some such apology for his oaths and curses — he 
had better unobservedly and heroically fight his 
passion even till it floors him, or quietly let it burn 
within him, as a fire in his bones, till it utterly 
consumes him, in which event he would deserve to 
be honored as a voluntary martyr to self-discipline, 
than let it find expression in a prayer to the Al- 
mighty to "damn" — himself or some other party. 
Anger itself, blatant and unrestrained, is a folly 
of which many a man has had reason to repent 
with bitterest tears, when the mischiefs it occasioned 
were found to be irreparable. The strifes and 
feuds which it kindles and keeps burning, often be- 
tween the nearest kin, constitute the most gloomy 
and unhappy chapter of the history of poor, faulty 
man. His first crime after his transgression in 



150 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Eden, as recorded in scripture,* was committed in 
a paroxysm of anger ; and the crime was murder. 
No one ever allowed it unlimited play who did not 
afterwards lament its indulgence. The sod of grave- 
yards covers many a still heart which was glad to 
find quietness, at last — rest from a great burden of 
guilt and shame, which for a long while had quick- 
ened its pulsations, as time and again there ap- 
peared before the sleeper's vision some great harm 
which, in a fit of anger, he had inflicted upon some 
fellow-being. It is a dangerous — a very dangerous 
venture, for a man of quick, high temper ever to 
let his anger master him. It is a passion so apt and 
wont, when in the ascendant, to press into its service 
such confederates as the pistol, the stiletto, the 
club, or any weapon or implement at hand, that, 
shot, or stabbed, or brained, often is the victim of 
its cruelty carried home a corpse , and, while his 
unsuspecting family is plunged into unspeakable 
grief, another — the family of the mad fool who 
committed the terrible crime — is made to bear a 
load of disgrace forever! Such have been the sad 
issues of ungoverned anger, times without number, 
in the history of crime. It is, therefore, strikingly 
true, the old simile that likens an angry man to 
" a ship sent out to sea which has the devil for its 
pilot," 

*Gen. iv. 1-17. 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 151 

Besides this, violent anger injures one's self as 
veil as the offender or enemy whom it affects one 
way or another. It is self-consuming. The unusual 
agitations, the extreme nervous excitements of the 
physical man laboring under its power are destruc- 
tive of the promise of longevity. That little conical 
organ — the natural heart — so wonderfully keeping 
mystic time from day to day with the varied and 
often conflicting emotions of the moral man, some 
times utterly refuses to act in response to his 
phrensy who, by indulging in violent passion, abuses 
its delicate functions. It resists, not unfrequently, 
the tension to which it is thus submitted, even 
to the rupture of its cords. That sudden death 
is not always its immediate and startling issue, 
argues nothing against the general truth that ex- 
cessive anger is destructive of the probabilities 
of life. Its effects upon the well-being of the 
body, as physiologists, who have made the phe- 
nomena of man's organism a life-long study, have 
always declared, are serious and lasting. Persons 
of a violent temper, as a rule, do not attain to very 
old age ; their physical nature is too delicately con- 
structed to endure very long the tempestuous action 
under which it is compelled so often to labor. The 
man, then, who is in the habit of yielding to such 
storms of anger — storms w T hich cannot fully or satis- 
factorily demonstrate his fury without the hoarse 
thunder of blasphemy — should remember, if he will 



152 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

give to this serious matter any thought at all, that 
he is doing this at fearful risks. In the madness of 
passion he may commit an act which some jury shall 
pronounce "murder." Or, under the abnormal ex- 
citement to which the whole physical man is sub- 
jected, he may drop down, a victim to his own 
folly. Or he is lessening, at least, his chances of 
life with every repetition of his freaks of madness. 
Foolishly exhausting his vital forces by an indul- 
gence whose effects are as certain as they are 
serious, if he drops into the grave in comparatively 
early life, is he not, at least in a constructive sense, 
a suicide ? All this in face of the plain truth that 
it is as much one's duty to live so long as possible on 
earth, to which end the beneficent Creator has fur- 
nished even superabundant means, as, having lived 
rationally and scripturally well to a ripe old age, he 
shall find it a privilege and pleasure, at last, to 
pause at the grave and pass through its terrors into 
the glory of immortality. 

Away, then, with this plea, whether intended as 
extenuating blasphemy, or simply as explaining its 
occasion, that "I never swear, unless I am angry." 
This is but indulging one folly to support another. 
If the reader will excuse the homely figure — the 
plaster, instead of mollifying, but inflames the 
wound. " Anger is a fire in the heart, and swear- 
ing is a smoke of this fire, that breaks forth at the 
mouth : and those who are violently hurried with 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 153 

this passion, do usually find nothing so ready at 
hand as an oath: which, if they cannot be revenged 
on him whom they conceive to have done them the 
injury, they fling against heaven itself, and thereby 
seem to take an impious revenge upon the Almighty 
God." * 

There can hardly be found a swearer who would 
coolly deny the truthfulnesss of these strictures on 
his vice. Often, in fact, when rebuked for it, he 
admits the folly of the habit which is so destructive 
of his interests, and which he has never soberly 
attempted to justify. Yet it is not an uncommon 
thing to hear such admissions qualified by some ex- 
planation w T hich is anything but creditable to his 
judgment of the proprieties and consistencies of 
manly conduct or deportment. The reader as well 
as the writer has more than once heard some such 
confession as this from the lips of the swearer : 
"I know that swearing is a foolish thing; it is a 
useless habit; yet I don't mean anything by it." 
But, like the plea of anger, is not this, too, urging 
one folly — acting without motives, which, by the 
way, to an intelligent, rational creature is hardly a 
possible thing — as extenuating another ? To one 
endowed with the powers of thought and feeling 
and who, if his sanity were questioned, would not 
feel at all flattered, it should be a humiliating con- 
fession, that he finds himself saying and doing 

* Bishop Hopkins. 

7* 



154 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

certain things without meaning anything. And 
this, too, not when he is asleep, in which condi- 
tion of innocence and irresponsibility the wisest can 
not be blamed for acting thus foolishly ; nor in a 
fit of abstraction which, if there be anything at all 
that can explain the habit of saying and doing 
queer or strange things, might be accepted as a 
satisfactory excuse for it, but when he is wide 
awake and in the full, conscious, and undivided 
possession of all his senses. 

If this excuse "means anything" at all, to use 
his own phraseology, it signifies that, in blurting 
out irreverent expletives, now and then, or such 
blasphemies as can have the only effect of wound- 
ing his religious friends, if they should happen to 
hear him, or of maddening his enemies, if it be on 
them that he showers his curses, and, in either 
case, of exciting the displeasure of his Maker, the 
swearer acts without any end in view, or purpose 
to subserve, or feeling to gratify, or any motive 
whatever to prompt him. He intends to hurt neither 
friend nor enemy, nor to insult his Creator. He 
expects neither admiration for his profanity as an 
accomplishment, nor contempt for it as a disgrace- 
ful thing. It is neither love for God or man nor 
hatred of either that moves him to swear. He has 
no idea of becoming famous or infamous for such 
impiety. And as to the business, it never occurred 
to him whether it would help or hinder him in 



IXEXCUSABLEXESS OF THE VICE. 155 

securing the confidence, esteem, and patronage of 
the community where he his known. 

Pretending — since, in fact, it is morally impossible 
for a sane man to do this — pretending thus to di- 
vest himself of all motivity, in respect of this vice, 
your swearer who flippantly says that he " don't 
mean anything at all" by his oaths and curses, con- 
fesses, in effect, that he is even less than a puppet, 
which Webster defines as a " small image in the 
human form, moved by a wire in a mock drama ; a 
wooden tragedian" — a definition which hardly in- 
cludes the honest (?) swearer, since Webster's 
" image" is made to act by a real force, communi- 
cated by some curiously-adjusted "wire," while the 
confessed "puppet" seriously avows that when 
"taking God's name in vain," he is not conscious of 
any feeling, or purpose, or motive whatever that 
could prompt him to commit such a crime. If we 
heard something like this from one of the beautiful 
little dolls which, by some mechanical attachments, 
and for the delectation of little girls, are made to 
walk, and cry, and utter such endearing words as 
"mamma" and "papa," we could not well question 
its truthfulness ; for in such wooden playthings there 
is no intelligence or reason to act upon and control 
such parts of them as serve for organs of speech. 
Such little, artificial human beings might be made 
to speak many guilty words as well, and yet remain 
entirely innocent of profanity or vulgarity, since no 



156 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

moral responsibility attaches to the diminutive, soul- 
less toys. But that a real, live, intelligent, rational 
man can thus say or do anything without "mean- 
ing" something by it, is a proposition to which we 
can hardly consent. 

If the swearer be disposed to deny the conclu- 
sions above stated, and from premises which he him- 
self offers, yet, from the plea for his vice, "I don't 
mean anything by it," and which he expects us to 
believe, if not to commend, he certainly cannot gain- 
say this plain inference, that he himself considers 
his profanity as an utterly gratuitous habit. No 
one asks him to swear. No one thanks him for his 
vile expressions. No one pays him to act the 
criminal. No one is pleased with his irreverence 
except himself. No one's esteem for him is 
strengthened by it. No one thinks it an evidence 
of genius, or of culture, or of sociability. There is 
absolutely nothing commendable that can be predi- 
cated of his vice. Yet with all this as well known 
to him as to them who hear his blasphemies, it is 
with a coolness that bespeaks such a total lack of 
religious sentiment as would astonish us if w T e dis- 
covered it in an ignorant, unenlightened heathen, 
and with a freedom of utterance that the purest 
angels who dwell nearest His throne of thrones 
would not indulge even in worship, that he can look 
you full in the face and abuse the holy name so 
shamefully that you wonder that He who is thus 
profaned does not instantly paralyze his tongue. 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 157 

The divesting one's self of all guilty intent, not 
only in respect of swearing, but as well of other 
sins, is a very plausible plea which, after all others 
fail to extenuate their vices, or exonerate them from 
blame, the profane are wont to apply as an extreme 
unction to their suffering conscience. This might 
be of some avail to the swearer in certain contin- 
gencies. If he accidentally killed some one, a cor- 
oner's jury, inquiring into the case, and finding that 
he had no murderous intent at all, would, of course, 
acquit him, though the act in itself is of a criminal 
character. Or, if in a fit of anger he dealt a fatal 
blow upon some one, some courts, holding that his 
violent passion was a circumstance somewhat miti- 
gative of his guilt, might show mercy enough for 
him to save him from the gallows by instructing the 
jury to bring in a verdict of manslaughter, or mur- 
der in the second degree. There is a legal maxim* 
frequently used in tribunals of justice to ascertain 
the degree of guilt attaching to alleged criminals. 
It is to the effect that the outer act discloses the 
inner motive or purpose — a maxim of jurisprudence 
which differs, not in principle, but simply in lan- 
guage, from the scriptural rule by which we are 
allowed to form a judgment of others' character — 
"by their fruits ye shall know them."f It would 
be of little use, however, to the swearer, if he were 

* Exteriora acta indicant interiora animi secreta. 
fMatt. vii. 20. 



158 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

arrested and judicially tried for his offence, to plead 
that, since the character of an act is determined by 
the intent, he, therefore, has contracted no guilt, in 
that he intended nothing by his profanity. Some 
shrewd lawyer would probably suggest that, since 
he had no intent at all, either to do right or wrong, 
when he committed it, he could not, therefore, by 
this means, determine whether his act were guilty 
or innocent. Stultifying himself by such a plea, 
he would probably be informed that the law holds a 
man to intend that which he does ; that it is only by 
the overt act which is prima facie evidence of the 
intent that it judges an offender; and that when it 
uses the maxim referred to, it is never with the 
specific view of ascertaining how very innocent the 
alleged criminal is, but simply and only to deter- 
termine how much guilt rests upon him. The court 
but acts in strict accordance with the end — justice 
— to which it is instituted, in determining thus to 
what extent an alleged criminal is really guilty. 
Anxious to screen the innocent, it is as well anxious 
that the guilty shall not escape that degree of pun- 
ishment which is due to them. That your brazen 
swearer could offer any plea at the bar, so true, 
touching, and impressive, that it would seem no less 
unmerciful than unjust to convict him of, and punish 
him for the crime of profanity is certainly very 
doubtful, if not very absurd. 

But again. It is boldly urged now and then by 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 159 

swearers, who seem to have become almost stark 
blind to the enormity of their offence, that, since it 
does not appreciably injure the Almighty , it is 
comparatively an innocent thing, or, at least, not 
so grave a sin as it is represented. True, there is 
a sense in which he is not, and cannot be injured 
by His own creature, man. Nothing said or done 
by the wayward, passionate, quarrelsome children 
of men, bent, as they daily are, on saying and doing 
a thousand things contrary to reason, justice, hon- 
esty and righteousness — indeed to both human and 
divine law — can ever injure Him in any one of the 
thousand ways in which their own words and acts 
affect themselves, or each other. Though the whole 
race unitedly attempted the mad freak of tarnishing 
it, yet the glory of God shall still flame out with in- 
effable, inextinguishable brightness. Nothing what- 
ever, transpiring on the arena of this comparatively 
diminutive planet, though all the peoples and presses 
of its several zones united in magnifying its import- 
ance as exceeding all estimate, can, in any measure 
or in any manner at all, damage his perfections. 
High above the subtle forces that have kept it 
whirling around its orbit for sixty centuries — above 
the din, noise, and confusion which, as it daily 
swings around its axis, are occasioned by the con- 
flicting passions and contrary interests of its teem- 
ing, fallen human beings — high above the sins, 
crimes, transgressions and iniquities by which, in 



160 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

one way or another, they have drenched with blood 
the very soil they till, and all of which are the issues 
of their natural, inborn enmity against Him — sits the 
Supreme Being whom, because of the impossibility 
of worshipping Him without some name by which 
He can be known to us, and addressed by us in 
prayer and holy song, though it is equally impossi- 
ble that any name at all, or title, or word, could ever 
adequately express His fullness of every conceivable 
excellence, we conveniently and reverently distin- 
guish from all other beings in the universe by the 
single, short, yet awful and appropriate monosyl- 
lable, GOD!! And wonderful it. is — indeed infi- 
nite — the patience and longanimity with which He 
observes, and will continue to observe, all that trans- 
pires on this earth, till the moment shall arrive, as 
deeply concealed from angelic as from human 
knowledge, when, switched from its orbit, as it were, 
by His little finger, it shall be precipitated into ulti- 
mate ruin — a finale which the interested universe 
shall witness as being but a mere circumstance in 
the development of some grand end which, though 
He revealed it to either, yet neither angels nor men 
could comprehend. Touching and impressive are 
the periods in which Jean Ingelow expresses this 
truth : 

" Dread is the leisure up above, 
The while He sits whose name is Love, 
And waits, as ISToah did, for the dove, 
To wit if she would fly to him . 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 161 

He waits for us, while, houseless things, 
We "beat about with bruised wings 
On the dark floods and water-springs, 
The ruined world, the desolate sea : 

With open windows from the prime, 
All night, all day, He waits sublime, 
Until the fulness of the time 
Decreed from His eternity." 

But there is a sense in which it is not true, that 
the Almighty cannot be injured by our sins. If 
He is " Our Father"' — the most endearing charac- 
ter in which revelation represents Him, and one 
which His "only begotten Son" seemed very anx- 
ious to impress upon the thought of poor fallen 
man — He cannot, speaking after the manner of this 
world, but be "hurt" by our wilful resistance of 
His authority and transgressions of His commands. 
Love is always sensitive, let it manifest itself in 
whatever form it may. Where there is love there 
is feeling. "Whatever other and more metaphysical 
definition of love the psychologist may offer, yet 
after all it is but the highest, most exquisite benev- 
olent feeling which can actuate either God or man. 
Nor can it be made to suffer more than when it is 
abused, in one way or another, as it proves its 
existence or evinces its tenderness, sympathy and 
kindness, in the parental relation. That He, then, 
whose "offspring" we are, and whose infinite love 
for us so grandly proved itself on Calvary, cannot 
as well be grieved by any sin we may commit against 



162 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Him, is a suggestion which conflicts directly with 
our conception of the character of a father. Indeed, 
it is not possible for us to think of Him as sustain- 
ing this relation to us, without associating with it 
all the tenderness and love which inhere in it. 
Had He never been hurt as "Our Father" by 
man's disobedience, He would not have interposed 
any scheme of salvation to prevent him from suffer- 
ing its consequences. With the mysteries sug- 
gested by this view of the Divine Being we have 
nothing to do. Certainly He is " Our Father," as 
well as "the only true God," and therefore as His 
children, Ave owe to Him the most unquestioning 
reverence, love, and obedience. 

Besides this there is no such thing as an innocent 
sin. Only acts which transgress neither human nor 
divine law are "innocent" acts. If one be com- 
paratively smaller than another in criminality, yet 
there is no sin, however trivial it may appear, that 
brings no guilt upon the soul. Of course, it is a 
misnomer to call any human act "sinful" that 
leaves no stain whatever upon the conscience ; but 
only such acts are "innocent," or harmless. If we 
concede, for a moment, that the distinction made by 
the Romish church between " venial " and " mortal " 
sins is not incorrect, yet who can believe that infinite 
justice is not incensed nor infinite holiness opposed 
as well by so-termed "little" as by great sins! 
Man's opposition to the Divine will and law is as 



INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE, 163 

direct and wilful in the least as in the most flagrant 
transgressions. We have no more license in Scrip- 
ture to speak an "idle word" than to profane God's 
name ; we are no more at liberty to hate our 
brother than to murder him ; we are no more per- 
mitted to tell a fib about some trivial thing than to 
perjure ourselves ; and the lustful look is as solemnly 
forbidden as the adulterous act. He who diminishes 
or underrates the dangerous importance even of the 
least sin — w r ho thinks that there is any sin at all 
which is not of enough consequence to be repented 
of — is not wise. He classes himself with a party to 
which Solomon applies an epithet not very flatter- 
ing — " Fools make a mock at sin." A single mote 
can destroy the pupil of the eye as completely as a 
dozen. A single bullet in battle is often as deadly 
as the steady veteran intended it to be — it kills his 
enemy outright, more than which twenty, equally 
well aimed, could not do. It is consummate folly, 
then, for any one to continue in the indulgence of 
any sin, under the dangerous conceit that it is a 
" little" or "innocent" thing. And the consum- 
mate folly of the sinner never appears more amaz- 
ing than when he coolly pronounces profanity an 
"innocent" thing — profanity , w T hich, as some one 
truly said, "is the very spirit and core of all evil, 
the quintessence of ungodliness." 

There are other excuses or apologies which have 
been urged, as extenuating the indulgence of this 



164 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

vice, but which we have not the space here to notice. 
We will end this chapter, then, with the general 
statement that there are no possible circumstances 
that can either justify the commission of sin, or, 
after its commission, excuse it. Real repentance 
confesses, but never pleads anything as extenuating 
it. It is too blinded with tears to discover any 
mitigating circumstances ; all it sees is guilt. It is 
too lowly-minded and broken-hearted to attempt any 
specious justification of the sins over which it weeps. 
It leaves the determination of the query, whether 
much or little guilt has been contracted by the sins 
of a lifetime, entirely to Him against whom they 
have been committed, content to know that the Al- 
mighty will not "pervert judgment," and to believe 
that though they " be as scarlet " yet He shall make 
them " white as snow ; though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool." If it be prone, 
now and then, to magnify the guilt it laments, it is 
not because it is blind to whatever differences of 
character and proportion exist between the sins that 
man commits. We regard this as an evidence, not 
of insincerity or foolishness, but of its genuineness. 
For, if ever the enormity of sin appears at all — 
" little," as well as great sins — it is when the mind, 
stirred hereto by the convicting agency of the Holy 
Spirit, attempts a contrast between God's infinite 
holiness and the deep guiltiness of man. 

If repentance, thus, is prone to see not less but 



IXEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 165 

more guilt than really attaches to the soul, by rea- 
son of sin, yet it is one of the truest and most un- 
failing signs of impenitence, that it not only sees no 
guilt at all, but it apologizes for sin ; it attempts to 
explain it away ; it frames the most empty pretexts 
for indulging it; it even urges, at times, the very 
weakness and proneness of man to sin, as consti- 
tuting, if not a sufficient justification for its commis- 
sion, yet an extenuation so tender and touching, 
that God eventually will make no account of poor 
man's sins, but save him, whether he complies with 
His revealed conditions of salvation or not. This, 
indeed, has been man's folly ever since his fall from 
the Divine favor. Adam evinced not the first sign 
of contrition, but not a little real moral cowardice, 
in criminating Eve. The frankness, candor, and 
honesty of her confession — " The serpent beguiled 
me, and I did eat" — appear in striking contrast 
with his unmanliness. Instead of admitting un- 
qualifiedly the fact of his disobedience, he offers an 
excuse for it ; he puts all the blame of his sin upon 
Eve, and even intimates that his Maker ought not 
to have tried him thus by giving him a partner — 
"And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest 
to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did 
eat."* And from that day to this, man has always 
been trying to excuse his sins. Whether his trans- 

* Gen. iii. 11-13. 



1G6 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

gression of the divine law be great or trivial, bis 
evil genius can always suggest some excuse for it. 
There is not a sin or crime on the full pages which 
the recording angel is scoring against the children 
of men, from the assassination of an emperor down 
to the comparatively light offence which the law 
terms "petty larceny," or the little "fib" which a 
child tells to escape the rod threatened for some 
other trivial thing, for which they have not some 
pretended reason, or specious extenuation. And, 
though their self-vindication cannot absolve them 
from the accusations simply of their own conscience, 
yet they make as if they really thought that it 
would be sufficient to clear them entirely at the bar 
of God. All sin is, indeed, inexcusable ; yet it is 
a singular thing, that more excuses than for any 
other sin that man commits are offered for the most 
inexcusable of all — profanity. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ON REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 

r^vEEPLY reverential was the feeling of a poor, 
~*-^ untutored freedman, on being told what the 
letters G, 0, D, spelled. The infamous law which 
prevented the slave-owner from teaching him, and 
the slave from learning to read, having been an- 
nulled by the most illustrious act which it is the 
privilege of history to record of our almost peerless 
Lincoln — the "Act of Emancipation" — it was re- 
marked by many who had opportunities of observing 
its effects upon the liberated bondmen, that they 
manifested the most intense anxiety to learn how to 
read. An old preacher, who was more pious than 
learned, had advanced so far in orthography that he 
could begin to spell w T ords of three letters. Hap- 
pening one day, for the first time, upon the awful 
name by which the Supreme Being is most gener- 
ally known, he slowly spelled it out, G, 0, D, and 
w 7 as told by his instructor that that was the name of 
the One he sometimes preached about. 

The effect upon his religious nature was almost 
electrical. Lifting up his hands in unaffected sur- 
prise, and with a simplicity that was charming, in 
spite of, his physical degradation, he asked, in a 
(167) 



168 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

tone expressive of his anxiety not to be misinformed, 
" Is this the name of God, and that the way it looks 
when printed?" On being assured that it was, the 
tears began to stream down his furrowed face, and 

" Weeping out the gladness of his pent-up heart," 
it was with a pathos seldom, if ever, equalled by 
the professional actor, that he exclaimed, " Oh, 
blessed day ! God has permitted these old eyes to 
see to read His name !" 

It is related in "Cope's Anecdotes" that "a 
certain American planter had a favorite domestic 
negro, who always stood opposite to him when wait- 
ing at table. His master often took the name of 
God in vain, when the negro immediately made a 
low and solemn bow. On being asked why he did 
so, he replied, that he never heard that great name 
mentioned but it filled his whole soul with rever- 
ence and awe. Thus, without offence, he cured his 
master of a criminal and pernicious custom." 

Such veneration for the Supreme Being was not 
superstitious. It sprung from a true apprehension 
of the Divine Existence, independently of such aids 
to belief as logical formulas afford the educated, 
cultured scholar. It was not an issue of "the be- 
lief of what is absurd, or belief without evidence," 
which is superstition, but of what has been defined 
as " knowledge " — " a clear and certain perception 
f * * * truth and fact." There is many a 
one to whom scholarly processes of proving the Di- 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 169 

vine Existence, or labored methods of demonstrating 
that this grand world did not and could not create 
itself, are entirely superfluous. Without great men- 
tal acquirements, or capacities, yet with a strong 
natural sense of the fitness of things, their belief 
that there is a God is not less admirable, in that it 
is formed in ignorance of scholarly methods, than 
theirs who believe the solemn truth, mostly because 
their syllogisms compel it. They do not need the 
help of artificial formulas to reach the belief that 
the] e is a Supreme Being whose very name ought 
to excite in them devotional feeling ; such belief in 
them is the result of the simple, unartificial reason- 
ing of Nature herself.* If the good man who was 
asked, "how he .could satisfy himself as to the ex- 

* "There seems to be a primitive faith on this subject, 
which can only be traced to the same origin with the mind 
itself. It is congenial and native to the soul to believe in 
God. Men may work themselves into an opposite belief ; 
they may at last resign themselves to Atheism, either in 
consequence of the extreme difficulty and darkness of the 
subject, or owing to moral causes ; but none begin with 
this. The first faith is invariably theistic, not atheistic. 
With interminable and wide differences mother respects, 
there is a marvelous concurrence of sentiment up to a cer- 
tain point, among all nations and ages. That there is a Di- 
vinity somewhere in this great universe, that there is some 
object of worship and obedience, is an original belief, da- 
ting from the constitution of the soul itself." — The Christ 
of History. By John Young, A. M., Part IV., Chap. III., 
pp. 122, 123. 



170 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

istence of a God?" and answered, "by simply open- 
ing my eyes," was not a scholar, neither was he, as 
his answer proves, a fool. 

The veneration occasioned in the one case above 
mentioned, by the mere sight of the name, God, 
and in the other by the mere hearing of it, even 
though uttered profanely, was but the feeling which 
instinctively possesses and controls one to wdiom 
God is, as well an object of devotion as a subject of 
belief — such easy, indifferent, ineffectual belief as 
neither constrains the nominal theist to love and 
serve Him, nor restrains him, when he finds himself 
so disposed, even from blaspheming His name. He 
who fervently worships, or profoundly venerates, 
the Divine Being, knows that it is not a fiction 
which thus affects him — a fiction conceived by some 
poetic genius to play upon the religious sensibili- 
ties of his nature — but a great, solemn fact, which, 
though too mysterious ever to be fully understood, 
is, nevertheless, a fact as real, and almost as palpa- 
ble, as is the presence of the wonderful material 
universe about him. 

"Deny Him * * * all is mystery besides ! 
Millions of mysteries ! each darker far 
Than that thy wisdom would, unwisely, shun. 
If weak thy faith, why chose the harder side ? 
We nothing know, but what is marvelous ; 
Yet what is marvelous we can't believe."* 

* Edward Young. 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 171 

The unlettered Mohammedan, happening on a 
slip of written or printed paper, carefully picks it 
up and lays it aside, lest, unknown to him, it may 
have upon it the holy name, "God." He would 
not trample upon it. He would not allow the winds 
to toy with it, nor should it be exposed to the 
wanton eye of any passer-by. Reverently, then, 
he touches it, folds it up, and lays it in some secret 
place. Admitting that this amounts to superstition, 
yet of the two extremes, who would not prefer the 
Moslem's profound appreciation of the holy name to 
his irrational profanity who, while he would resent 
the charge of atheism, yet, by his blasphemy, in- 
sults at once his own reason and his Maker ? 

It is wonderful; it is incomparable — the name 
above all other names, God ! Though but a mono- 
syllable — one of the shortest of human language,* 
and pronounceable in a moment — yet it is of awful 
significance. Not in itself, as defining Him to 
whom it exclusively belongs, since no word, or name, 
or title, or any possible combination of terms can do 
this, but it distinguishes or ranks Him, who will be 
spoken to by it only in prayer or song, as above all 

* It is a singular thing, that in almost every known lan- 
guage the name of God is spelled with four letters, con- 
stituting, in most instances, a dissyllable, excepting in the 
Anglo-Saxon, which uses but three, which form a mono- 
syllable ; but even of these three letters one must be dupli- 
cated, if we wish to express the literal sense of the name, 
God, which is good. 



172 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

minor and dependent entities in the universe. The 
mystery of mysteries that the name veils is, that 
infinity belongs to Him — a distinction that can be- 
long only to One being. Waiving all remark on 
the phenomena concealed in the nature of the only 
Infinite One — phenomena which have been chal- 
lenging the intensest inquiries of the highest angels 
ever since He beckoned them into being, and will be 
ours, as well as their subject of profoundest thought 
through all the interminable future — how satisfac- 
tory is this suggestion of His name, that it designates 
a real, distinctive Being! u lie is" whom we call 
" God," though we cannot see Him with the natural 
eye, nor hear Him with the natural ear, nor touch 
Him with the natural hand — a fact which to us is 
not displeasing, but rather agreeable. For we can 
conceive of no greater calamity to the human mind 
than to have all the obstructions removed, all the 
hindrances taken away, which now prevent us from 
immediately apprehending the Deity. Oh, the lux- 
ury of revelling in the mysterious ! 

In face of the impossibility that we can ever en- 
joy an adequate understanding of His perfections, 
from a few objects visibly near us, and a larger 
number telescopically seen, we are now inferring 
what He is who made them, and of whose name we 
are jealous that it may be honored. Descending 
into the sea as deeply as we can sink ; whirling up- 
ward till we reach, and, attempting to count, are 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOB. 173 

overwhelmed by the number and blinded by the 
brilliance of the stars ; burrowing into the earth al- 
most far enough to be scorched by the heat of its in- 
ternal fires ; sailing daringly towards either pole 
till its everlasting frosts, affecting our very life- 
currents, gently induce us to lie down and sleep — 
venturing, thus, as far into the material universe as 
the impetus of our religious enthusiasm can carry 
us, everything that receives from us only a hasty 
glance, or years of patient analysis, helps us a little 
to a more humbling and devotional appreciation of 
His incomprehensibility whom the poet thus finely 
apostrophizes : 

"God! God! word written on the waves, impressed 
Upon fair Nature's universal breast — 
Wafted by every breeze, and borne along 
By every motion that lias sense or song — 
Splendent above and beautiful below, 
The soul of all the universe art Thou !"* 

True, it is but little — the knowledge of God 
which can thus be gathered from the illustrated 
folio of creation. And with all that can be added 
to it from the luminous pages of Scripture, it is still 
very little as compared with the infinite fullness of 
the Godhead — so very little that we can invent no 
simile that shall convey a clear idea of the immense 
disproportion ; yet these precious morsels — crumbs 
of "bread from heaven" — as we taste them, but 

* Sir John Bo wring. 



174 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

whet our appetite for more — more ! They are quite 
too satisfying to be refused because we cannot en- 
joy all the fullness of God. Why should we wish 
to reach down and dip from the secretest corners of 
the spring — recesses concealed far beneath us — 
when water clear, sweet, refreshing, and full enough 
to quench our thirst, is flowing over its edges — 
water of which not the least cheery property is, 
that it is always flowing! 

We need offer no apology for thus magnifying His 
Being, for the vindication of whose name against 
the abuses to which it is so commonly submitted, 
we almost covet the tongue of angels. They may 
be using, in their devotion, some other name than 
God — some name known only to themselves, and 
too holy to be revealed to us, or which could appro- 
priately be used only where sin is not, and never 
has been known. But in our human worship here 
on earth — our prayers and songs here, where sin is 
forever troubling us ; where it rises up with us in 
the morning, and tracks us all day long, and, when 
we lie down again at night, stalks before us again 
in our very dreams ; here, where it ever disturbs 
our peace, and makes us, at times, so afraid that we 
shall never reach the gates of heaven to hear the 
blessed say, "Come in!" or that, at last, we shall 
be lost, the Name to which clings our trembling 
hope of final salvation, and, as suggesting the only 
possible means by which it can be realized, our faith 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 175 

fastens itself as tenaciously as the ivy clasps the 
storm-beaten oak, is "God . . . in Christ." 

Yet some not only will not reverence, but do 
actually blaspheme that name ! How shocking to 
our religious sensibilities ! What barefaced iniquity ! 
What shameless indecency ! If they would but let 
it alone! Let it alone, if they will not use it in 
prayer or sacred song; let it alone, if it serves them 
no worthier purpose than to point a jest, or give the 
semblance of earnestness to idle, empty conversa- 
tion; let it alone, if it does not awe them into the 
attitude of merely common respect; let it alone, if 
they will not use it reverently — oh, if they would 
but let the Xame alone ! Like the "man with an 
unclean spirit" in the gospel, by their coarse, blas- 
phemous language, they pray to Him, in effect, " Let 
us alone; what have we to do with Thee?"* And 
He will, if they keep on bandying His name from 
mouth to mouth, as if it were of no more signifi- 
cance than a shuttlecork. He will yet "cause 
them to know" by His "hand and His might" that 
His "Xame is the Lord."| 

It belongs to our object of worship. When we 
knelt in childhood at her knee who taught us the 
language of devotion, among the first petitions that 
Ave tried to lisp to Him, who " out of the mouth of 

*Marki.23, 24. 

f Jer. xvi. 21. 



176 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

babes and sucklings hath perfected praise,"* was 
" Hallowed be Thy name /"f As we grew towards 
manhood, daily needing His interposition to prevent 
us, as a youth, from venturing into paths that end 
in destruction, the petition that most suggested 
thought of our own littleness and weakness, and of 
His majesty and mightiness who is pleased that we 
ask Him for help, was, u Hallowed be Thy name!" 
And now that we have crossed the meridian of life, 
and our shadow begins to lens-then, reminding us 
that the evening draweth nigh, the feeling of rever- 
ence for the Supreme Being, begotten and nurtured 
in the morning of life, is stronger than ever. The 
old petition, spoken slowly, " Hallowed be Thy 
name!" sounds as softly and rhythmically as when 
we uttered, or heard it repeated, in the days of our 
youth, while the deep significance attaching to it, 
which the study of theology in our manhood under 
the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit has 
developed, bends us lower than ever, as we continue 
daily to repeat it — u Halloived be Thy name!" 
The worship which angels offer Him may be more 
profound than ours — worship which may not in- 
clude the element of prayer, so far, at all events, as 
it is an expression of pressing want or need — yet it 
is scarcely more acceptable to Him, as from time to 
time they cry " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Al- 

*Matt. xxi. 16. 
f Matt. vi. 9. 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 177 

mighty, which was, and is, and is to come!" than 
is the petition which ascends to Him daily from His 
humble saints on earth, " Halloived be Thy name!" 
He is our object of worship, dear reader, w T hom 
the profane abuse. As even a heathen, if some 
daring wretch spat upon his wooden image, would 
resent the profane act, so let us cultivate deep, in- 
telligent sensitiveness as to the honor of the true 
God. 

Addison, who was an ornament at once of religion 
and literature, has recorded in the Spectator , that 
the Hon. Robert Boyle, an eminent scholar of the 
seventeenth century, and " of whom," says another 
distinguished writer, "it is difficult to say whether 
his piety as a Christian, or his fame as a philoso- 
pher, was most remarkable," never mentioned the 
name of God " without a pause and visible stop in 
his discourse;" as if, on its recurrence to his eye, 
or thought, he heard, at the instant, His awful voice, 
demanding silent and adoring recognition of, and 
attention to, His sovereignty — 

" Be still, and know that I am God !"* 

The ancient Jews were distinguished for their 
veneration of the Supreme Being. So profound was 
their sense of His title, Jehovah, that they felt 
themselves scarcely at liberty, if not actually for- 
bidden, to repeat it, even in the solemnities of wor- 

* Psa. xlvi. 10. 
8* 



178 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

ship. It was a constant rule with their scribes never 
to write it without first washing and wiping their 
pens. It is no less suggestive of serious thought 
on the sin of profanity than interesting as a record 
of biblical history, to notice the occasion of the Mo- 
saic law which demanded such deep reverence for 
the Deity, and the manner in which it was recorded 
for the consideration of succeeding ages. 

A striking circumstance in the instance of blas- 
phemy recorded in Lev. xxiv. 10-23, is that 
the name of the daring sinner is not mentioned. 
From the peculiar phraseology by which he is iden- 
tified — "the son of an Israelitish woman, whose 
father w^as an Egyptian," " this son of the Israelitish 
woman," "the Israelitish woman's son," and, in 
parenthesis, ("and his mother's name was Shelo- 
mith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan") 
— it appears that, if the profane criminal expected 
notoriety as one of the issues of his bold transgres- 
sion — a motive w T hich not unfrequently actuates men 
even to the vilest deeds — the sacred historian in- 
tended that he should be disappointed. He seems 
anxious that, while the identity of the w T retch should 
be so plainly described, that no Israelite then living 
could be in doubt as to the real person who was 
condemned for blasphemy — yet, having made it in- 
famous, his name, therefore, should not descend to 
posterity with the distinction of being written in 
Scripture. Manifesting thus his sense of the infamy 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 179 

of this shameless swearer, the inspired historian at 
the same time presents a very significant expression 
of his own deep veneration for the name which had 
been profaned. As if it were too holy to be men- 
tioned at all, especially in an instance of blasphe- 
mous use of it, he omits it entirely in his faithful 
record — "And the Israelitish woman's son blas- 
phemed the name of the LORD* and cursed." 
In the law, also, of blasphemy which was communi- 
cated to Moses in solemn conference with the Al- 
mighty, as consequent on this flagrant instance of 
profanity, the ineffable name is omitted — "And he 
that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall 
surely be put to death, and all the congregation 
shall certainly stone him : as well the stranger as he 
that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the 
name of the LORD, shall be put to death." 

Unreasonably severe as this law may appear to 
some minds, constituting profanity, as it does, a 
capital offence, though for the people whom it was 
intended to affect, and the end to which it was en- 
acted, it may be proved not unreasonable, yet, who 
that attempts in his serious hours to comprehend the 
mysterious glories of the Infinite One, whom, if His 
name is to be spoken at all, we very becomingly 
designate by the short yet awful monosyllable, 
"God," cannot w T ish that a greater degree of such 

*The italicized words "of the Lord" were supplied by 
the translators to complete the sense of the original text. 



180 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

reverence for Him as those ancient Jews conscienti- 
ously cultivated were instilled into the flippant minds 
of the generations of the present age ? To read, 
that "long before the birth of Christ, the Jews un- 
derstood the law," above quoted, '/as if it pro- 
hibited them from uttering the name, Jehovah, 
which the true God had given Himself, as His 
nomen propriwm, on any other than solemnly- 
sacred, or, at any rate, sacred occasions ; and, of 
course, from ever naming Him at all in common 
life,"* — a law which they most scrupulously 
observed ; and, further, that " the Jews were ac- 
customed wherever they found the word Jehovah 
in the Bible," either to pause a moment and silently 
pass over it, or "to pronounce, instead of it, the 
name Adonai, or Lord," — to read of, and contrast, 
such deep reverence in the old Jewish mind for the 
Supreme Being, with the irreverence and profanity 
of this nineteenth century of the Christian world, 
impresses the devout soul with a painful sense, if 
not of a real deterioration of man's religious nature, 
yet certainly of the unwelcome fact, that, with all 
the boasted enlightenment of our gospel times, and 
all the advances that have been made in theological 
science, and all our superior helps to this end, yet 
the religious sentiment inherent in man has not 
developed very largely towards perfection. 

* Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, Sir John David 
Michaelis. 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 181 

It is no objection to the inculcation of a deeper 
reverence for the Supreme Being, that the name, 
God, by which He is now ordinarily addressed in 
worship, and which is so very frequently, shame- 
lessly and generally "taken in vain" by the 
thoughtless, may be less significant of His nature 
than the " philosophically sublime and expressive 
title," Jehovah, whose true pronunciation, kept so 
long by the Jews as a mysterious secret, has 
entirely passed out even of their own memory. It 
is possible, as before hinted, that He has a name, 
or title, which has never yet been pronounced at 
all, or heard, on earth — a name of such wonderful 
depth of meaning and impressiveness as to be unre- 
vealable in the arbitrary characters of human alpha- 
bets, and, hence, utterable only by angelic tongues. 
Be this as it may, yet the name, " God," known to 
us, expresses our highest conceptions of the In- 
finite : it calls out and gives direction to lonorino;s 
and aspirations which can never be met save in 
Himself ; it acts upon and soothes the mental and 
moral affections of our nature, which would forever 
occasion us unhappiness were there no God of whom 
they can take hold, and in whom they can find 
quietness and rest. We are shocked, therefore, 
beyond expression, when we hear this name pro- 
faned. We are wounded more than if some keen 
blade had been thrust into our flesh, for we feel the 
injury in our very soul. 



182 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

There are ministers of the Word whose very fre- 
quent and unnecessary repetition of the awful names 
of the Almighty, in their prayers and preaching, 
borders closely on profanity. On being asked by 
her mother where she was going, a little girl once 
replied, "I'm going, mamma, to see our minister, to 
tell him not to sivear so in the pulpit ." Though a 
mere child, yet it startled her sense of reverence to 
hear the solemn appellations so often and needlessly 
reiterated, by which it is possible that the Su- 
preme Being may be addressed without being wor- 
shipped. To use His loftiest titles in the act is not 
consonant to the idea or nature of prayer — a state- 
ment which needs no other authority to prove its 
correctness than the " Sermon on the Mount," where 
the Master, by repeating the w r ord so often, seems 
anxious to impress upon His hearers the truth that 
prayer is nothing more nor less than simply to 
"ask" our "Father in heaven" for such things as 
we need.* No earthly father on whom, for one 
reason or another, the world has conferred divers 
distinctions, expects his children, if they desire some 
favor of him, and approach him with that end in 
view, to enumerate and emphasize in a formal man- 
ner, all those distinctions and titles before he will 
listen to them and grant their request. Such a 
filial address would be but a travesty on the familiar 
intercourse of parents and children. Based on the 

*Matt. vii. 7-11. 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 183 

tenor of the entire New Testament revelation, it is 
our conviction that the Supreme Being is not as well 
pleased with, if He does not really refuse to hear, 
the lofty phraseology — the high-sounding terms — 
which some use in their prayers to Him, as with 
simpler language — such plain, simple language as 
an artless child, desiring something of his father, 
would naturally use. 

It w^ould, perhaps, offend those ministers who are 
given to this habit, to call it sinful. Nevertheless, 
we kindly submit, that a thoughtful examination of 
its terms, a calm, deliberate, and, withal, devotional 
inquiry into its breadth of meaning, will, doubtless, 
lead them to see, and prompt them honestly to con- 
fess, that it is a violation at least of the spirit, if not 
of the letter, of the third commandment. 

The most appropriate and endearing name that 
we can use, in our devotions to the Supreme Being, 
is clearly revealed in the gospel. Certainly the 
example alone of our " Elder Brother" is sufficiently 
authoritative as to the phraseology that ought to be 
used both in our preaching and in our prayers. 
Aside from that, however, He has given us a posi- 
tive precept, touching the appellation by which He 
would have us to speak to our Maker. The first 
time " He opened His mouth" to instruct His dis- 
ciples in Christian doctrine and duty, with other 
counsels, He told them how to pray, " After this 
manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father who art in 



184 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

heaven,"* etc. No one knew, and no one could 
know the Supreme Being as intimately and fully as 
"His only begotten Son." It was the burden of 
His ministry on earth to make known God unto 
men, And it is remarkable that in all His recorded 
discourses, conversations, and prayers, the name 
which He used with but comparatively few excep- 
tions to designate Him of whose " glory " He was 
"the brightness," and of whose "person" "the 
express image," was " Father." The first expres- 
sion recorded as having been uttered by Him when 
a mere child contains the sweet name — " Wist ye 
not that I must be about my Father's business ?"f 
And the last prayer that he sent heavenward amidst 
the agonies of the cross was thus offered, " Father, 
into thy hands I commend my spirit "J "Some- 
times, when referring to God he makes use of the 
more personal and intimate designation, ' My Father,' 
4 My Father's Kingdom." || < My Father hath ap- 
pointed me.'§ ' My Father worketh hitherto.'^" 
6 It is my Father that honoreth me.'** But much 
oftener, generally indeed, he adopts the more com- 
prehensive word, and speaks of God as the Father, 
' The Father hath life in himself.' ff ' Neither in 
this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, ye shall wor- 

*Matt.vi. 9. fLukeii. 49. 

J Luke xxiii. 46. |[ Mat. xxvi. 29. 

§ Luke xxii. 29. 1 John v. 17. 

** John viii. 54. ft John v. 26. 



1 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 185 

ship the Father.' * ' He that hath learned of the 
Father.' f 4 Not that any man hath seen the 
Father.' J 'I will pray the Father. || 'What- 
soever ye shall ask of the Father.' § Addressing 
ing not any select class, but all those indiscriminately 
who listened to his teaching, he represented God as 
the Father. "^[ Both by precept, then, and ex- 
ample are we taught, by one whose instructions are 
infallible, what name it is most becoming for us to 
use when we take occasion either to speak of Him 
in ordinary religious conversation, or discourse, or 
to Him, in the privilege of prayer. We confess 
that we lack in appreciation of the eloquence of a 
prayer filled with repetitions of the awful titles of 
the Divine Being. Far more impressive and accor- 
dant with the ends contemplated by the act, is the 
simplicity of language, manner and tone evinced by 
a loving, trustful child, who has not the shadow of 
a doubt but that his father, if he thinks it best, will 
give him what he wants. Says an able writer, 
" This little word ' Father ' lisped by faith in prayer, 
by a real Christian, exceeds the eloquence of De- 
mosthenes, Cicero, and all the famous speakers in 
the world." It is the human name of the Divine 

* John iv. 21. f John vi. 45. 

X John vi. 46. || John xiv. 16. 

g John xv. 16 ; Vide, also, John xvi. 25 , John xvi. 28 ; 
Acts i. 4 ; Acts i. 7. 

% Young's Christ of History, Part IV, Chap, iii., p. 141. 



186 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Being — a name by which, laying aside, as it were, 
the mysterious glories that invest His throne as 
" the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only 
wise God," he becomes not barely approachable, 
but He relates Himself so closely and tenderly to 
man, that not one of the whole race, encouraged 
hereto by our great mediator, need ever hesitate to 
" come unto " Him. 

And it is scarcely less amazing that man should 
abuse it than that God should manifest such infinite 
condescension toward him. It is base ingratitude 
that any one of our race should slight Him at all, in 
less offensive ways ; but that any one should open 
his throat and blasphemously belch forth His name 
in horrid imprecations for His vengeance is simply 
devilish. It is a name of deepest moment to us in 
all the emergencies of our human life. None has 
stored away in secret closets within such viands as 
will afford him refreshment, whenever he may have 
occasion to unlock the closet and bring them out — 
oil to mollify the wounds he receives as he stumbles 
along through life, and wine to strengthen him 
when he grows weak and enliven him when he is 
despondent — oil and wine that shall so heal and re- 
cuperate his wounded moral nature, suffering under 
accumulated troubles, that he shall never fall into 
despair. None finds in his nature a well that never 
gives out — a Avell out of which, time and again, he 
may draw sufficient supplies for his thirst, so that 



REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 187 

he never need take his pitcher to another fountain. 
None — none has resources enough in himself to 
meet and battle with the ills of this life without 
looking out of and beyond himself for sympathy and 
help from some other source. No human soul is 
naturally so heroic that it never quails before the 
onset of huge troubles ; no human heart beats too 
stoutly to be disturbed at all by untoward things. 
Such independence is the purest fiction ; worldly 
philosophy aspires to but never attains it ; it is the 
dream of poetry inspired by no divine muse. It 
reminds us of the assurance, self-sufficiency, and 
stately gait of the demented one who imagines him- 
self a king. 

And so it comes, that, utterly without resources 
of our own, and so suspicious — perhaps, too often 
— of the sympathy and proffered help of our fellow- 
men, that we are ready to exclaim with Job, 

7 J 7 

"miserable comforters are ye all," our faith, in its 
many and great needs, so eagerly lays hold of " the 
name of the God of Jacob."* Because we find 
Him to whom it belongs so willing and " able to do" 
for us, in all our straits, " exceeding abundantly 
above all that we ask or think," we will "praise the 
name of God with a song, and will magnify him 
with thanksgiving."! Moses says that His name, 
"THE LORD THY GOD" is "glorious and fear- 

*Ps. xx. 1. fPs. lxix. 30. 



188 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

ful."* And David, that it is " holy and reverend ;"f 
and that "glory is due unto it;"} and that He 
"rideth upon the heaven by his name JAH ;"|| and 
that it "shall endure forever;" it "shall be con- 
tinued as long as the sun."§ He declares that it 
"alone is excellent;"^! and prays that it may " be 
magnified forever."** He touchingly asks if it is 
to be "blasphemed forever ?"ff and pitifully calls 
them "foolish people "$$ who are given to this 
terrible sin. With him, and with all His creatures 
whom the Supreme Being hath made sufficiently 
competent, first to "believe that He w," and then 
" a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him," we 
are ever ready to exclaim," blessed be His glorious 
name for ever; and let. the whole earth be filled 
with His glory; Amen, and Amen!"||| 

' ' Thy great name, 
In all its awfnl brevity, doth bless 
The tongue that uses it ; for me, 
I ask no higher office than to fling 
My spirit at Thy feet, and cry Thy name, 
God ! through eternity ! "§§ 

*Deut. xxviii. 58. f Ps. cxi. 9. 

^.Ps. xxix. 2., Ps. xcvi. 8. ||Ps. lxviii. 4. 

§Ps. xxii. 17. IPs. cxlviii. 13. 

**2 Sam. vii. 26. ffPs. lxxiv. 10. 

ttPs. lxxiv. 18. 1 ||Ps. lxii. 19. 
§§ Festus. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 

"YTTE have often been deeply impressed on read- 
* ' ing, what any fair critic Trill admit is one of 
the sublimest productions of poetic genius. It is 
said that on being brought to the notice of the Em- 
peror of Japan, he was so profoundly affected by its 
transparent excellence, that he ordered its transla- 
tion into the Japanese language, and embroidered 
in gold, to be hung up in the temple of Jeddo. It 
is also said to have been translated into the Chinese 
and Tartar languages, and written on a piece of 
rich silk that is suspended in the imperial palace at 
Pekin. 

It is worthy of such royal honors. There are 
but few writings, other than the Scriptures, that can 
quicken our apprehension and deepen our appreci- 
ation of the sublime truth of the Divine Existence 
more than this. The Book of God itself must have 
been scanned most industriously and devotionally 
by its distinguished author, the Russian poet and 
statesman, Gabriel Romanowitch Derzhaven, when 
composing it, for it is brimful of Scripture. A 
patient analysis of the poem will satisfy the reader, 
not only that, as a whole, it finely harmonizes with 
(189) 



190 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

the spirit and genius of revelation, but that many of 
its periods are really what might be termed rhyth- 
mical reproductions of its very phraseology. There 
are parts of it so very like the utterances of the 
ancient seers, that one is almost led to believe that 
the author penned his heroic measures under the 
same divine afflatus that affected their pens. 

Were any apology needed for its reproduction 
here, it would be the end contemplated by this 
essay — the correction of the fearful vice of pro- 
fanity and the deepening in men's minds of that 
lingering veneration for the Supreme Being which, 
if carefully cultivated, will issue in their ultimate 
enjoyment of the highest bliss of which He has made 
them capable. Our only fear in transferring it to 
these pages is, that it will not be read because it is 
"poetry," though it should not be forgotten that 
some of the finest conceptions of the Deity are con- 
veyed to us through this very medium in the Old 
Testament revelation. Exalting, as it does, the 
majesty of the Almighty, suggesting the profound- 
est truths which, though beyond the compass of our 
understanding, yet lure us away from the visible 
and known by their very marvelousness, enveloping 
all His manifold works with most effulgent drapery, 
and, withal, evincing such humility as cannot but 
possess a mind filled with grand conceptions of the 
Infinite, it certainly bespeaks a serious, thought- 
ful reading. But, to the poem itself: 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 191 

GOD ! 

Thou eternal One : whose presence bright 
All space doth occupy, all motion guide ; 
Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight ; 
Thou only God ! There is no God beside ! 
Being above all beings! Mighty One! 
Whom none can comprehend and none explore ; 
Who filVst existence icith Thyself alone ; 
Embracing all-supporting — ruling o'er — 
Being whom we call God — and know no more ! 

In its sublime research, philosophy 
May measure out the ocean-deep — may count 
The sands, or the suns rays ; but God ! for Thee 
Tliere is no weight nor measure : none can mount 
Up to Thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark, 
Though kindled by Thy light, in vain would try 
To trace Thy counsels, infinite and dark : 
And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high, 
Even like past moments in eternity. 

Thou from primeval nothingness didst call 

First chaos, then existence ; Lord ! on Thee 

Eternity had its foundation ; all 

Sprung forth from Thee — of light, joy, harmony, 

Sole origin : all life, all beauty Thine ! 

Thy word created all, and doth create ; 

Thy splendor fills all space icith rays divine. 

Thou art, and wert, and shalt be ! Glorious! Great! 

Light-giving, Life-sustaining Potentate! 



192 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround, 

Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath! 

Thou the beginning with the end hast bound, 

And beautifully mingled life and death! 

As sparks mount upward from the fiery blaze, 

So suns are born, so worlds spring forth from Thee! 

And as the spangles in the sunny rays 

Shine round the silver shore, the pageantry 

Of heaven's bright army glitters in Thy praise ! 

A million torches lighted by Thy hand 
Wander unwearied through the blue abyss : 
They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, 
All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss. 
What shall we call them? Piles of crystal light — 
A glorious company of golden streams — 
Lamps of celestial ether burning bright — 
Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams? 
But Thou to these art as the noon to night ! 

Yes! as a drop of water in the sea, 
All this magnificence in Thee is lost : 
What are ten thousand worlds compared to Thee ? 
And what am I then? Heaverts unnumbered host, 
Though multiplied by myriads, and arrayed 
In all the glory of sublimest thought, 
Is but an atom in the balance, weighed 
Against Thy greatness — is a cipher brought 
Against infinity ! 0, what am I then ? Naught ! 

Naught! Yet the effluence of Thy light divine, 
Pervading icorlds, hath reached my bosom too; 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 193 

Yes! in my spirit doth Thy spirit shine. 

As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew! 

Na ugh t ! Yet I live, a n d on h ope's p in ion s fly 

Eager towards Thy presence ; for in Thee 

Hive, and breathe, and dwell; aspiring high. 

Even to the throne of Thy divinity ! 

I am, God! and surely Thou must be! 

Thou art! directing, guiding all. Thou art ! 
Direct my understanding, then, to Thee; 
Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart : 

Though but an atom 'midst immensity. 

Still I am something, fashioned by Thy hand ! 

I hold a middle rank Hwixt heaven and earth. 

On the last verge of mortal being stand, 

Close to the realms where angels have their birth. 

Just on the boundaries of the spirit-land! 

The chain of being is complete in me; 
In me is matter s last gradation lost, 
And the next step is spirit — Deity ! 
I can command the lightning, and am dust! 
A monarch, and a slave ; a worm, a god! 
Whence came I here? and how so marvellously 
Constructed and conceived? — unknown! this clod 
Lives surely through some higher energy ; 
For from itself alone it could not be ! 

Creator, yes! Thy wisdom and Thy ward 

Created me! Thou source of life and good! 

Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord! 

Thy light. Thy love, in their bright plenitude 
9 



194 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Filled me with an immortal soul, to spring 
Oder the abyss of death, and bade it wear 
The garments of eternal day, and wing 
Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, 
Even to its source — to Thee — its Author there ! 

thoughts ineffable ! visions blest ! 
Though worthless our conceptions all of Thee, 
Yet shall Thy shadowed image fill our breast, 
And waft its homage to Thy Deity ! 
God! thus alone my lonely thoughts can soar : 
Thm seek Thy presence, Being wise and good! 
■Midst Thy vast icorJcs admire, obey, adore ; 
And when the tongue is eloquent no more, 
The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude. 

It is a fine thought of Bishop Hopkins touching 
the Deity, that " it tires the conceptions of angels 
to apprehend His majesty." Much more, then, is 
man confounded, on attempting it, as in the instance 
of the philosopher Simonides, whom the king asked, 
" What is God? " Desiring a day's time in which 
to prepare a sufficient answer, and finding himself, 
at sunset, too perplexed to report to the king the 
result of his deliberation, he asked another day. 
But another sunset found him as far off as ever from 
an adequate definition of the Being of beings. 
Asking another day and still another, the king at 
length chided him for his long delay. Too pro- 
found for the philosopher, to the king's query, 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 195 

"What is God?" he could only respond at last that 
"the more he thought upon it, the more still he 
might. For the further he waded himself in the 
search thereof, the further he was from the finding 
of it." It is said, too, of Plato — " the Divine," as, 
for his wisdom, the ancients styled him — that, on 
being asked the same question, he answered, 
"What God is, that I know not; what He is not, 
that I know." Heathen, as they were, and, hence, 
less informed of His perfections than we to whom, 
in His gospel, He has given a more glorious revela- 
tion of Himself, yet it would be attributing to neither 
philosopher a feeling too nearly like our own, if we 
supposed him, on pausing a moment in his inquiry 
into the phenomena of His Being, as passionately 
exclaiming with our modern Christian poet, Breit- 
haupt. 

" While Thee, all infinite, I set 

By faith before my ravished eye, 
My weakness bends beneath the weight ; 
O'erpowered I sink, I faint, I die !" 

We might as well attempt to carry the ocean in 
the hollow of our hand as to essay to comprehend 
an unrestricted, or fuller revelation of the Supreme 
Being, than we now enjoy. He "hideth Himself" 
— "clouds and darkness are round about Him," not 
that He would excite in us doubts of His existence, 
or vex our efforts to unravel the profound myster- 
ies of His Being, or encourage us to spend our 



196 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

loves only on the visible which, in truth, is less real, 
in that it is transitory, than the invisible which 
lasts forever, but He u hideth Himself" lest an in- 
finite display of His glory should indeed consume 
us. It is mercy, not cruelty — it is infinite mercy 
and wisdom that prevent God from revealing Him- 
self to us without a veil. 

The shadows that invest 
His throne are tempered, lest its blaze should blind, 
Aye, wilt me into nothingness. A single 
Glimpse of Him unveiled, and angels e'en would 
Cease to be. Content am I to see 
Unflinchingly the glistening orbs that 
Nightly ornament His footstool, earth, the 
Fringe of glory that He pencils on the 
Vesture of th* retiring storm, and th' image 
Of His Power, tho' dimn'd by mist, as mirror' cl 
In the vasty deep. 

I dare not peer too 
Far into the glory-burthened clouds 
About The Infinite, lest like the foolish 
Moth I perish for my pains in seeking 
Light. 

We need not ask pardon of the reader for thus 
bending his thought more directly and fervently 
towards the Mighty One than on previous pages. 
If he has entertained exalted views of Him, it is 
but appropriate to our purpose to stir up or 
strengthen such an appreciation of His claims upon 
his recognition and reverence, while, if he has not 
cultivated such subdued, reverential feelings to- 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 197 

wards the Almighty as would prevent him from 
indulging any profanations of His sanctities, it but 
strictly accords with our design, thus to excite in 
him deep thought of his irreligion, indeed, of his 
positive wickedness, or criminality. God is an ob- 
ject which no one endowed with mind can exclude 
from his reflections without imperiling his highest 
interests. We must think of Him, and the senti- 
ment of reverence thus occasioned should not be 
allowed to remain inoperative : it must eventuate 
in honest, sincere obedience to His will and Word, 
else the ultimate issue can only be eternal banish- 
ment from His Presence into " outer darkness." 
Though it be impossible ever to acquire an adequate 
understanding of His nature and perfections, yet 
all who can think are by this very fact bound to 
compass as much of the revelation of Himself as He 
hath made it possible for them to apprehend. Oh 
that we could stay the ambitions of men for vani- 
ties of all sorts, just long enough to turn them to 
the only two objects in all the universe which are 
really worthy of their deepest thought — God and 
their own human soul ! 

To our own mind it is, indeed, a vast, unfathom- 
able deep — this subject of infinite magnitude, God ! 
Now and then w T e walk along the shore so fascinat- 
ed by glimpses of wonderful things which it dimly 
outlines to our view, so held by the ceaseless, solemn 
murmurings which roll in upon the soul from the 



198 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

not very far-off but, as yet to us, untraversed, un- 
realized department of life whither every heart- 
throb is nearing us, and ingress to which will at last 
be so easy, that unconscious of the swelling tide of 
mystery, we find ourself, at length, utterly over- 
whelmed. Contemplating His sublime excellencies, 
and the myriad manifestations of His infinite Self, 
in the natural world, which it is hardly credible 
that any sane man could ignore — manifestations 
wanting nowhere, but which start up before him in 
every nook and cranny of creation whither man's 
curiosity or love of truth or of novelty carries him, 
it is with deep-felt resentment that we protest 
against their utter irrationality and irreverence who 
deny His very existence. 

The most profane of the profane is the wilful 
atheist. For he not only robs God of the glory 
due to Him as such, but He blasphemously de- 
nies Him the very right to be! If the word 
" profane"* means what scholars tell us, there is 
at once none to whom it may be more appropri- 
ately applied and who is at a greater distance 
from every possibility of salvation, if he continues 
in his blasphemous belief, than your stubborn 
atheist. Jeremy Taylor exposes the absurdity of 

* It is of Latin origin. Bishop Hopkins says, that it 
* ' hath its notion or etymology, quasi porro, ovprocul afano ; 
which signifies far from the temple," or "separated from 
religion. ' ' 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 199 

all that the most logical of the profane fraternity 
have advanced as constituting their " argument." 
"The thing formed, says that nothing formed it; 
and that which is made, £«-, while that which made 
it is not! This folly is infinite." Nor is it a very 
complimentary or flattering figure of rhetoric under 
which Coleridge depicts atheistic incredulity — 

' ' The owlet Atheism 
Sailing on obscene wings across the moon, 
Drops his blue-fringed lids and shuts them close, 
And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, 
Cries out, 'Where is it ?' " 

It astonishes us — it is, indeed, extreme profanity, 
that any one, who is not a born idiot, should deny 
personality, or existence, to "the Mighty God," 
though infinitely sufficient evidences of the sublime 
truth abound in every department of knowledge. 
The stars need not prove their entity ; they nightly 
flash down their light upon our sight to challenge, 
not our faith in their being, but our admiration of 
their brilliance. The towering mountain need not 
hoarsely belch forth some formal reason for its ap- 
pearance in nature ; the appreciative observer is 
content to let it wear its grandeur, and awe him into 
a thoughtful attitude, without protest. The flowing 
sea need not explain and apologize for the swell 
that lifts still higher the proud, curling pennants of 
the man-of-war; the crew feels it without a doubt 
of its reality. Every seen thing is admitted, even 



200 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

by those who seem to be most honest in their avowed 
conviction that there is no God, to be in its proper 
place, and to be observing its proper offices. No- 
thing whatever in all the world of organized matter 
needs any plea for being just what it is, and where 
it is, in the complicated structure ; and the grand 
whole constitutes such a unity of creation as must 
have been pre-conceived and wrought out by one 
mind, and, too, of infinite powers. Yet, strange as 
it is, to many persons, the Creator of all this, for 
claiming that He is "God over all," is not merely 
an object of suspicion, but no object at all, either of 
faith or of doubt, of reverence or of irreverence. 
And, mostly, because He is not seen, or is not as 
directly visible, as His creatures — a reason for 
which, to be self-consistent, they should, as well 
deny the existence of what, for want of a better 
word to express it, we call " life," since, like a thou- 
sand other things in this phenomenal world, it is not, 
and cannot be seen. Whatever visible things evolve 
themselves from the impalpable " principle," as 
some thinkers have called it, and of which visible 
things none is more full of mysteries than the 
human organization, are but its effects, or results, 
and not " life " itself. 

It would be folly, perhaps, on our part, to 
attempt an original argument, or merely new hints 
or suggestions, as addenda to the profound volumes 
on the Divine Existence which the deepest thinkers 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 201 

of nearly every age in the history of man have left 
us as a precious heritage of their faith in, and devo- 
tion to Him. Nevertheless as it is our firm convic- 
tion, that the super-abounding and still increasing 
profanities of the times are due to the atheistic and 
infidel sentiment which has been, within recent 
years, and still is, cultivated by large numbers of the 
people, the reader will allow us to tax his patience 
a little further, in our protest against such dangerous 
unbelief. It certainly behooves every believer in 
God, in this age of atheistic activity, to assert his 
convictions, though in doing this he may state 
nothing new. 

Some of the learned philosophers of the age are 
loth to concede, while it is brazenly denied by 
others — leaders in the world of scientific investiga- 
tion — that there is such an "Eternal One" as is so 
profoundly adored by the author of the grand Rus- 
sian poem. Or, if He exists at all, as it were by 
their sufferance, in their inquiries into the arcana 
of the material creation — His own handiwork — they 
seem anxious to determine, not how intimately 
related to it He is — an effort which would find its 
reward in the extinguishment of all doubt of His 
existence — but how remote is His agency, if He 
ever had any at all, in its origination and perpetua- 
tion. Discovering, now and then, the relations, or 
direct causes, of a few things which have hitherto 
baffled the investigations of philosophers, or were 



202 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

unknowable, more because their own perceptive 
powers w r ere not sufficiently developed to distinguish 
them, than that the Creator had put them under the 
ban of secrecy, they clap their hands over what they 
complacently term "the successes of science;" and 
boldly and proudly asserting its superiority to reve- 
lation which, in not one of its scriptures, assumes to 
be a teacher of mere science, they seem delighted 
that they can crowd the Creator, as it were, so far 
away from our understanding, that to retain Him at 
all in our belief amounts to the merest superstition. 
Stumbling, now and then, upon really extraordinary 
things in the secret, unwritten, ponderous history 
of cause and effect — a history which there is no 
other than the infinite mind of the great God Him- 
self that could either dictate, or, if written in full, 
could compass — it is expected by these sceptical 
scholars, that we shall accept their explanations of 
the phenomena as being sufficiently conclusive to 
disabuse our minds of the notion, that God had any- 
thing to do with them. Their science more than 
offsets our inherent faith in Him. Their doubt of 
His Being is more reasonable than our devotion to 
Him. Their deductions and inductions are infallible, 
and, therefore, incontrovertible. The attitude that 
we are expected to assume before each successive 
revelation which they blazon before the world of the 
hitherto unperceived causes of things, is that of 
being dumb-founded, while, if we dare, as believers 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 203 

in God, to modify their dictum by suggesting that 
it is more than possible that He had something to 
do with them, we are condemned as having com- 
mitted an outrage upon the sacred person of science. 

It is not to science itself that we oppose objec- 
tions. We rejoice in its disclosures of secret things 
in nature, for the farther we penetrate her labyrinths 
the deeper becomes our conception of His wisdom 
and power, and the more appreciable becomes the 
relation that we, as His creatures, sustain to the 
mighty God. We welcome every demonstration of 
facts which physical science offers us ; but we pro- 
test against the assumption that the prosecution of 
its inquiries logically ends in atheism. 

Two very unscientific things have always pre- 
vented, and always will prevent us, from accepting 
the dictum of some of the world's most scholarly 
yet godless scientists touching the Divine Exist- 
ence. The first is, the fathering of the "enmity" 
of their own "carnal mind against God" on the re- 
velations of science. The second is, their ultima- 
tum that there is no God, though as yet it has not 
been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt. 
Certainty has ever been the boast of science. It 
permits no doubt of that which it assumes to prove. 
On the ground of the accuracy of its principles and 
methods, it claims implicit belief in its teachings. 
And yet the learned atheism which identifies itself 
so closely with much of the science of the present 



204 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

day as scarcely to be distinguishable from it, presses 
upon our belief the proposition that there is no 
God, which it has not yet proved to the satisfaction 
even of many men of equal mind and knowledge, let 
alone the very much larger class of much less 
learned persons but of more faith in revelation. In- 
volving as it does issues of infinite moment, science, 
expecting us to believe its dictum with any demon- 
stration before us less than such as amounts to 
mathematical certainty, is surely guilty of greater 
follv than is the faith of man in the Word of God. 
It needs no proof that man can never be utterly 
silenced respecting the old, old truth, that God is ! 
We may be ridiculed for our creed. Through lack 
of mental discipline, and ignorance of strictly logical 
methods, we may be worsted in argument. We 
may be brought to confusion by the great learning 
which some champion of atheism may precipitate 
upon us to overwhelm and humiliate us. Yet our 
natural conviction that God is still challenges all 
means used to put upon it an eternal quietus. 
After all, this inherent instinct will re-assert itself 
— it will manifest itself in one w r ay or another. 
Some may call this mere prejudice on our part ; 
others may bluntly term it obstinacy ; but we term 
it an ineradicable instinct of our divinely-organized 
being. It is a spark of light in our human nature 
which never has been, and never can be extin- 
guished; it only needs, here and there in the dark 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 205 

places of the earth, the gentle breath of the Spirit 
of revelation to kindle it into a very flame of pure 
devotion. If men are accountable, not only for 
their belief in itself, whatever it may be, but for the 
actual results of that belief, and as it affects other 
lives as well as their own ; and if, furthermore, 
there shall be included in their final account not 
only the results, or effects, of their belief upon the 
minds and in the lives of the generation of which 
they are units, but as well, all the results that shall 
accumulate in the generations of all coming time, 
how terrible will be found the score tallied in eter- 
nity against those philosophers of the age who, wiser 
than revelation can make them, are teaching the 
world that God is not, or, if there be a God, He is 
not the Great First Cause of any thing ! 

Others there are who, though they admit the 
solemn truth of the Divine Existence into their 
creed, yet deny that He has given us any revelation 
of His mysterious Self other than nature affords. 
To them the Scriptures are but " cunningly-devised 
fables." They will allow us no communication with 
Him, except as we grope after Him through His 
works. They would keep us apart — God and our- 
selves — as if too intimate acquaintance would sub- 
serve neither His glory nor our good. Some of the 
brightest intellects of the day find actual pleasure, 
in this meridional epoch of the history of knowledge 
and of religion, in prostituting their powers of 



206 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

eloquence to the destructive end of weakening the 
world's sense of the sanctities of His Being. They 
belittle His Word. They deny the obligation of 
His Sabbath. They recommend the re-modeling of 
His churches into theatres. They make light of the 
profession of His people. And His ministers are 
but targets towards which they level arrows, that, if 
not poisoned, and, hence, intended to kill, are, at 
least, supposed to be too finely sharpened not to 
wound them. They seem learned — some of them 
— which fiction carries with it an influence upon 
many minds as positive and effectual as that of the 
fact itself of real learning. They beguile their 
auditors with the fascinations of wit, vainly imagin- 
ing that with a laugh, like a lance, they can pierce 
the most cherished truths to which the Christian 
world has clung for centuries, and leave them life- 
less as a corpse. It is no help at all to the cause of 
Divine truth to deny the fact that there is a cold 
tidal wave of infidelity now flowing over the land 
under which the religious sensibilities of many are 
being chilled to death, the fervent attachment of 
others to the Scriptures is being cooled, and the 
development of the gospel throughout the land is 
being greatly hindered. Not for many past decades 
have there confronted us such dangerous forms of 
infidelity as are to-day challenging the resistance, 
both of the thoughtful yet inconsistent statesman, 
who, though not humble enough personally to pro- 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 207 

fess it, yet holds that religion is absolutely neces- 
sary to the very existence of government, and of the 
Christian whose avowed relation to Him imposes 
upon him the obligation of vindicating God's name 
and authority over man. The masses are being 
permeated with a species of leaven which cannot 
but work corruption throughout the whole body 
politic — the leaven of rationalism, so aggressive in 
its operations that it is actually endangering the 
existence of what is at once our glory, and the 
pledge of our perpetuity as a nation — our religious 
institutions. The very foundations of society are 
being unsettled by the eloquent essays of men to 
whom, if they honestly believe that there is no 
God, it ought to appear as no small proof of His 
Being, that He has given them the power to think, 
and the power to express their thought. 

Though we have no fear of the ultimate issues of 
this campaign against the truth of God prosecuted 
by men who are indebted to it for the very blessings 
which make their present life desirable, yet there 
are certain present results which no sincere admirer 
of our common Christian faith, whether or not he is 
an avowed believer, will blindly ignore. If we 
properly weigh the relations that obtain between a 
general, honest belief in the God, no less of the 
Bible than of nature, and the order, morality and 
happiness of society; or, if we calmly consider 
that involved in such a belief, or identified with it, 



208 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

are all the best interests of our present life — physi- 
cal, moral, intellectual, spiritual, personal, social and 
political interests — it cannot but give us pain to 
observe that such large masses of the people are in 
sympathy with these would-be destroyers of relig- 
ion. Urging their way towards and crowding the 
halls, where they are told that there is no reason to 
believe that there is a God, and yet are inconsist- 
ently taught the while to magnify reason itself as 
their god, it is with boisterous glee that they ap- 
plaud the grossest blasphemies that roll oif the 
smooth tongues of the witty orators. Not merely 
suppressed murmurs of approbation, but clapping of 
hands and stamping of feet and impious responses* 
from the more shameless of the interested throngs, 
greet the bon-mots flung down upon them by the 
hero of the hour — bon-mots on our orthodox faith 
which he expects them to accept as evincing his 
wonderful intellectual superiority to any Christian 
mind that entertains such a faith — indeed, to the 
aggregate brains of all Christendom. Observing 
such merry demonstrations of infidel sentiment in 
the public halls of our land, a stranger from another 
planet, supposed to be inhabited by an intelligent, 

* At one of Col. Robert Ingersoll's Sunday evening 
lectures recently, in New York city, there came down to 
the ears of the profane orator from one of the galleries 
this shocking endorsement of his atheism, "Down with 
Jehovah !" 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 209 

unfallen, and, hence, superior race of beings, might 
well be astonished at the feeling that actuated these 
fascinated crowds — the feeling of joy and gladness 
that the idea of God was being dethroned from 
human thought. On being informed of man's fallen, 
depraved condition, and of his utter lack of natural 
resources by which he might regain the glory he 
lost in his fall from the Divine favor, doubtless his 
astonishment would give way to the deepest pity 
that he should reject Divine interposition to that 
end, while his astonishment and pity could but 
merge in the feeling of shame on beholding that 
any of His creatures on whom He had bestowed the 
superlative gift of reason should actually hold a 
jubilee over a supposed successful attempt to 
exclude God from having anything at all to do with 
or for them ! 

All this is as lamentable as it is shameful. 
Though the victories of this warfare against the 
truth are not yet so startling as to amaze the whole 
Christian world, and, as we believe, are but tempor- 
ary, yet to true Christian zeal, contemplating the 
conversion of our whole race to the gospel, they are 
not of small importance. Of the fascinated crowds 
so ready to applaud these emissaries of dangerous 
error, very many who, in an unobtrusive way, have 
been cultivating infidel sentiment, are now more 
demonstrative in their opposition to religion. Many 
others who have been quietly doubting that the 



210 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

Bible is true, and have not felt certain perhaps that 
there is a God, imagining themselves convinced of 
the correctness of their doubts, are now more posi- 
tive and decisive in their unbelief. Many of the 
lower, less intelligent classes — such as have never 
had any fear of God or of man — are actually being 
fitted for further and grosser violations of both 
divine and human law by the weakening of those 
moral restraints which the truths of God's existence 
and of the authority of His Word always exert upon 
the life of man when properly presented and 
enforced. It was a witty but caustic comment, and 
not less true than witty or caustic, which a leading 
metropolitan journal,* not an avowed religious sheet, 
yet much more outspoken, fearless, and pungent, as 
a rule, in its denunciations of the immoralities of the 
day, than many of our professedly religious papers, 
made, not long since, on the eloquence of the most 
brazen champion of infidelity in modern times: — 
44 Colonel Ingersoll delighted an immense audience 
last night, and can be sure of many more, for every 
lad character in New York wants to believe that 
Christianity is a fraud." 

Does not this sufficiently account for the infidelity 
of men ? It is not the legitimate issue of reason 
and knowledge, but " the wish is father" and a de- 
praved heart mother "to the thought/' that there 

* The Neio York Daily Herald, April 25, 1881. 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 211 

is no God, or that "Christianity is a fraud" — a 
view of its origin, or cause, which is sustained by 
the very letter of Scripture. St. Paul attributes 
the abominations of the Gentiles to the fact that 
" they did not like to retain God in their knowl- 
edge " — * a dislike which excused neither their 
gross idolatries nor any other crimes to which they 
gave themselves. Ineradicable, as it is, yet very 
many do not like their own natural convictions of the 
Divine Existence. They consent to the truth, not 
willingly, but reluctantly. They would like to dis- 
prove it, but there is a natural, insuperable difficulty 
in their way — intellectual inability. The truth 
that there is an All-seeing eye following their every 
step, an All-hearing ear listening ever to their soft- 
est w T hispers, a Presence from whose continued 
observation there is absolutely no escape, is a dark 
shadow; it hangs over all their paths; it casts a 
gloom upon all their questionable pleasures ; it 
crosses all their carnal inclinations ; it makes them 
cowards often at night, since it adds somewhat to 
the terrors of natural darkness, while it is a most 
humiliating and pitiful exhibition of their boasted 
independence of Christian fears, or pusillanimity, to 
hear them blaspheme God's holy name often in 
broad daylight. This is their "skeleton in the 
closet" — the thought that there is a God who will 

*Kom. ii. 18-32. 



212 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

eventually confront them, and demand of them an 
account of themselves — a skeleton, however, which 
will not keep itself in concealment. Though blood- 
less and fleshless, yet it seems to have all the power 
of life. Laughing at all efforts to bar and bolt it 
within the closet of the mind, it sits down with them 
at their riotous feasts ; it mingles with them in their 
orgies ; it follows them into places of bad repute ; 
it almost clutches their fingers while engaged in 
some guilty work ; it starts up frightfully, now and 
then, before them, when conceiving some wicked 
project, and in the progress of its prosecution it will 
not keep out of their way ; it follows them, and, 
endowed, as it w x ere, with a voice which none but 
themselves can hear, ever and anon it w r hispers in 
their ears this first of all truths, There is a God ! 
This is the torment of their life ; and, like Hamlet's 
ghost, it will "not down" — it will not be " ob- 
scurely sepulchered." It is a truth that, like the 
sword of Damocles, hangs over them threateningly. 
The uneasiness thus created in many minds by 
the truth that there is a God to whom they are ac- 
countable for all their acts, is not imaginary but 
real. It illustrates itself in a thousand ways, of 
w T hich there is none so malignant, so utterly profane, 
as their desire to extinguish, if not God Himself, 
yet, at least, their own belief in Him. We are 
persuaded that if some extraordinary genius should 
rise up and, aided and abetted by the prince of 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 213 

darkness, present to the world such an argument 
against the long-cherished, and down toihe present 
day still unshaken truth that God is as no master- 
polemic in all Christendom could refute — an argu- 
ment as plain to the common mind as that white is 
white, or black, black — there are tens of thousands 
of men who would set the very bells a-ringing for 
gladness. Whatever explanation of the causes of 
unbelief have been offered by men who have deeply 
revolved this subject, there is, after all, no truer 
one than that most atheists are such because they 
want to believe that there is no God, and a very 
large proportion of infidels are such because they 
" want to believe that Christianity is a fraud." 

With this exhibit, then, before him, of the pre- 
vailing atheism and infidelity of the age, the reader 
need not be surprised at its abounding iniquities. 
No wonder that God's name is more generally and 
grossly profaned, that His Sabbath is less scrupu- 
lously observed, that the preaching of His Word is 
attended with less success in the conversion of men, 
or that fewer additions are made to the membership 
of His church than has been observed for many past 
years. No wonder that, compiled by careful, com- 
petent hands, the statistics of crime have become so 
appalling even to the secular press, * which is wisely 

* As supporting the views here expressed, touching the 
cause of the increased number and magnitude of the 
crimes of the current times, Tve herewith append the de- 



214 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

calling public attention to the demoralization of 
society. It is a fact that needs no proof other than 
the history of man, that in the ratio of the preva- 
lence of such atheistic and deistic sentiment as is 
above described crime increases. It is as true in 
the moral world that a bad life issues from a false 
faith as in the natural world that a foul stream flows 
from a corrupt fountain. It is as absurd to expect 
virtue or morality to bud, blossom, and bear fruit in 
one who is not u rooted and grounded" in the faith 
of God's existence, as to expect " grapes of thorns, 

liverance, which has just fallen into our hands, of the New 
York Evening Post : — " We believe it to be susceptible of 
demonstration that the late extraordinary and deplorable 
increase of crime — an increase more palpable every day, 
crowding with its record the columns of the public prints, 
and sickening the soul with its endless detail and novelty 
of horror — is largely due to the growth of materialism, or 
what is termed infidelity ; and that mainly in the reaction 
from the sceptical drift of the times lies the path of whole- 
some reform. A careful survey of the murders, suicides, 
and other great felonies committed in the chief cities of 
the United States during the last ten years, shows that a 
heavy fraction of the perpetrators were atheists and free- 
thinkers. These unhappy persons, persuaded that life is 
the be-all and end all here, imagine that they can jump 
the life to come . A collection of letters and other papers 
often left by criminals, when anticipating death, shows a 
fearful number of instances, some of which many readers 
will recall, of absolute disbelief in the existence of a God, 
or in penalties for sins committed in this life to be exacted 
in a future one." 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 215 

or figs of thistles." Some thought like this must 
have deeply impressed even the notorious Robes- 
pierre. It was a critical period of French history 
when the no-God party was about to gain the 
ascendency. The whole nation was reeling under 
the dominance of passions which, defying the 
restraints of morality and law, were precipitating it 
into anarchy and utter ruin. Crimes were being 
committed which blanched the cheeks and palsied 
the feeble opposition of such witnesses as in whom 
there yet smouldered some embers of the universal 
faith that God is. There was none who could stay 
the tide of evil and terror flowing over sunny France 
— a tide as resistless as the waves that laughed at 
Canute's imperial decree. Then it was that Robes- 
pierre stood up and, at the peril of his life, ex- 
claimed with trembling voice, "The legislator who 
would adopt the system of Atheism is insane. The 
national convention abhors such a system. Atheism 
is aristocratic. The idea of a Great Being w T ho 
watches over oppressed innocence, and who punishes 
triumphant guilt, is quite popular. If God did not 
exist it ivould behoove men to invent Him /" 

But we have not the space further to pursue this 
line of thought. We have written enough to sug- 
gest to any mind desirous of knowing the truth, the 
duties which the great d:ctrine of the Divine Exist- 
ence implies. It is due, as well to one's own well- 
being as to the divine glory, that he should never 



216 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

let his inherent idea of God lose its vividness, or its 
distinctness. As the world of living men, moving 
hither and thither over the great deep, would be de 
stroyed were the polar star plucked from the sky 
and plunged into the sea, so let this star, gleaming 
down upon us through the darkness of nature, be 
extinguished, if possible, and the w T hole race of man 
is lost in time and in eternity. As upon human 
works of art may often be seen the maker's name, 
inscribed in a place where, true, it is not the first 
thing observed, yet still where, on searching for it, 
it may be seen; so upon the human soul is inscribed, 
nor is very long and anxious examination necessary 
to find, the name of the Artist, God. Who w T ould 
erase it ? Who believes that, as a creature, he is 
merely the ultimate result of a fortuitous concur- 
rence of insensate atoms, and not the product of 
divine infinite skill and wisdom ? Who professes 
such atheism confesses, too, that he is a fool. 

There are times when men who, though they 
would be offended at the charge of atheism, yet find 
it difficult to keep uppermost in their thoughts the 
great truth of the Divine Existence. Deeply en- 
grossed w T ith material things, devoting their powers, 
almost uninterruptedly, to merely earthly aims, the 
idea of God loses its influence on them so far that, 
brought to reflection by seme providence crossing 
their path or ending temporarily their secular activi- 
ties, they are ready to blame themselves as in effect, 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 217 

having had no belief in Him at all. They mourn 
perhaps over this practical atheism of which they 
confess themselves guilty. But even while they 
lament it, the pressing, driving duties and engage- 
ments of secular life, coming one after another with 
resistless momentum, crowd out of them again and 
again this profitable sorrow, so that no means are 
adopted and rigidly pursued to cultivate their relig- 
ious nature. If it seems, thus, to be growing less 
and less in importance, or if the thought of God is 
gradually losing its power over your outer life in 
proportion as the things of this life take hold of the 
•soul within, then fling aside the implements of your 
handicraft, leave your gains in bank or in the safe, 
turn your back. upon the whirl and twirl of purely 
material activities, and go walk silently and reflect- 
ively the paths of nature, that at every step you 
take in any direction the great eternal truth may 
be read anew, and may be re-impressed deeper than 
ever upon the soul. And take the Scriptures with 
you — "the mirror of the Divinity," said the poet 
Gilfillan; "the most sublime philosophy," said Sir 
Isaac Newton; "a letter from the 'Father of mer- 
cies' to His children at school," said Bowes; — take 
the Scripture with you and read it upon every page. 
Every page glows with the radiance of His name. 
The imprimatur of each book is "Thus saith the 
Lord." He who, in the love of truth, reads the 
Bible with the view of settling the question whether 
10 



218 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

or not he shall believe in God, will never find him- 
self presumptuous enough to ask, like insolent 
Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His 
voice?" 

And when you have occasion to do it, speak His 
name solemnly, impressively. It is not a trifle of 
language. There is infinite significance in it — "a 
far greater fulness of meaning," says an eloquent 
writer, "than in all the names put together of all 
the creatures and things in heaven and earth." 
Josephus records* a signal illustration of the fact 
that, as written by the ancient Jews, there seems to 
have attached to it some mysterious talismanic 
power. Alexander the Great, on his approach to 
the Holy City, with an army of blood thirsty Phoe- 
nicians and Chaldeans, intent on the death of the 
high-priest and on a harvest of plunder, was himself 
vanquished by a glimpse of the Name. Meeting 
"the high-priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with 
his. mitre on his head, having the golden plate 
whereon the name of God was engraved, he ap- 
proached by himself, and adored that name, and 
first saluted the high-priest." Gathering about the 
conquered conqueror the Jews enthusiastically 
saluted him, at which extraordinary demonstration 
his disappointed army became so surprised that they 
concluded that he had suddenly become demented 

* Antiquities of the Jews. Vol. i. Book xi. Chap. viii. 



SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 219 

— they "supposed him disordered in his mind." 
Differing from the judgment of his maddened army 
and, in face of repeated subsequent instances in 
which a profound appreciation of the Being of God 
has been attributed to a disordered mind, we insist, 
nevertheless, on 

" Glory and praise to Jehovah on high ! 

Glory from all. through the earth and the sky ! 
Angels approach Him in homage and duty ; 

Fall at the feet of your Heavenly King : 
Saints, to His Presence O throng, in the beauty 

Of holy devotion His mercies to sing. 
Glory and praise to Jehovah on high ! 
Glory from all, through the earth and sky !* 

* Henry F. Lyte. 



CHAPTER IX. 

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 

HHHE divine law forbidding profanity first reached 
-^- the ear of man amidst awful solemnities. It 
is the merest sketch of the extraordinary scene 
which Moses recorded in the Pentateuch.* The 
poet or painter is not living whose genius is equal 
to an essay, in verse or on canvass, that shall 
adequately picture the terrors which invested the 
towering pulpit whence the Almighty first uttered 
the law of holiness to stricken, fallen man. From 
the midst of " thunderings " that shook "the 
mount" to its very foundations, as if it were in 
travail at the birth of some preternatural monster ; 
and of roaring flame, kindled by the play of un- 
fettered "lightnings;" and of rolling masses of 
"smoke" and "cloud" which begirt and guarded 
its crest against the stealthy footsteps of prying 
curiosity — there was heard "a voice" marvelously 
distinguishable from the blast of some mysterious 
"trumpet," which, at the same instant, "sounded 
long," and, as one and another choir of unseen 
angels joined in the strain, " waxed louder and 
louder" — "a voice" so alarming to the immense 

*Ex. xix. 16-25. 
(220) 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 221 

throng standing " at the nether part of the mount" 
that instinctively they fell back, " and stood afar 
off," and begged their leader, Moses, that it should 
not be repeated — "a voice" the burthen of which 
was the holy law which was forever to govern man 
in his relations to his Maker and his neighbor. 
Israel had never before witnessed such an extra- 
ordinary demonstration of the Divine Presence. 

And remarkable, indeed, is the fact, which chal- 
lenges especially their consideration who think 
swearing a thing of trifling consequence, that " of 
the eight great crimes which God thought proper to 
make the express subject of prohibition," in this 
holy law, the only one which He solemnly declares 
shall not escape His judgment is set forth as fol- 
lows : — 

« THOU SHALT NOT TAKE 

THE NAME OF 

THE LORD THY GOD 

IN VAIN: 

FOR THE LORD WILL NOT HOLD 

HIM GUILTLESS 

THAT TAKETH HIS NAME 

IN VAIN."* 

Accented with thunder and punctuated with 
lightning, as was this divine law touching profanity, 

* Ex. xx. 7. 



222 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

it is difficult to determine which is • the more re- 
markable fact, that any one who has read it, and 
pondered the terrible phenomena which attended its 
first publication to the world, should ever dare to 
violate it, or that God does not visit them with 
instant vengeance who dare to do so. Of this latter 
fact there is but one explanation — an explanation 
which comes from the lips of the Mighty One Him- 
self, and breathes such infinite love and mercy, on 
His part, as should move, one would' think, the im- 
penitent swearer to tears, as he reads it — " As I 
live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the 
death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from 
his way and live."* It is the testimony, also, of 
one of His inspired apostles, that " the Lord is not 
slack concerning His promises, as some men count 
slackness ; but is long-suffering to us- ward, not will- 
ing that any should perish, but that all should come 
to repentance."! 

Not less authoritative because its deliverance was 
not accompanied with such phenomena as distin- 
guished the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, is the 
gospel commandment touching profanity. As plain 
as emphatic, and as decisive as direct, is Christ's 
veto of this gross irreverence. None could feel as 
exquisitely as He — " the brightness of His glory, 
and the express image of His person" — J the in- 

*Eze. xxxiii. 11. \2 Pet. iii. 9. {Heb. *• 3 - 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 223 

dignity of a mere indifferent mention, let alone a 
bold profanation, of the name of God. None can 
be more jealous of the honor of the universal Father 
than was His only begotten Son. None can appre- 
hend the gravity of the offence of belittling the 
Lord God Almighty than did He whose claims to 
divine fellowship, which have never been disproved, 
hardly needed any demonstration other than his own 
positive testimony, "I and my Father are one."* 
It is the manner of a king, recognizing no authority 
greater than his own, to legislate for his lawless 
subjects, and the tone of a judge who evinces no 
conscious sense "whatever of a higher court — a 
"court of appeals" — that could send down a re- 
versal of his decision, which appear in His utterance 
of the New Testament law on this subject: — 

" BUT I SAY UNTO YOU, 

SWEAR NOT AT ALL ; 

NEITHER BY HEAVEN ; FOR IT IS GOD'S 

THRONE: 

NOR BY THE EARTH; FOR IT IS HIS 

FOOTSTOOL : 
NEITHER BY JERUSALEM ; FOR IT IS THE 

CITY OF THE GREAT KING. 
NEITHER SHxlLT THOU SWEAR BY THY 

*Jn. x. 30. 



224 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

HEAD, BECAUSE THOU CANST 
NOT MAKE ONE HAIR WHITE OR BLACK. 

BUT LET YOUR COMMUNICATION BE, 

YEA, YEA; NAY, NAY: 

FOR WHATSOEVER IS MORE THAN THESE 

COMETH OF EVIL."* 

Denied, as it is, by some learned men, and as- 
serted by others, that judicial oaths are here for- 
bidden, we are, therefore, left to our own judgment 
to determine whether or not Christ actually pro- 
hibited this sort of swearing. We cannot easily 
dismiss the conviction that He meant to interdict 
all swearing, judicial or non-judicial, formal or in- 
formal. His reference to several old prohibitions! 
of false oaths — " It hath been said by them of old 
time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, etc." — loses 
all its force, if He did not intend His new precept 
to. forbid swearing truly, as well as falsely. 
Uttered in the same breath in which He quoted 
some old-time authority on the sin of perjury, His 
emphatic, negative command — " Swear not at 
all" — is, to our own mind, not equivocal. It 
simply means that we are not to swear even to the 
truth, and, if we are not to swear, at any time, even 

*Mat. v. 34-37. 

f Lev. xix. 12. Num. xxx. 2. Ec. v. 4, 5. 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 225 

to the truth, much less dare we swear falsely.* 
Strongly corroborative of this construction is the 
parallel scripture from the pen of St. James : — 

"BUT ABOVE ALL THINGS, MY 

BRETHREN, 

SWEAR NOT, 

NEITHER BY HEAVEN, NEITHER BY THE 

EARTH, 

NEITHER BY ANY OTHER OATH ; 

BUT LET YOUR YEA BE YEA ; AND YOUR 

NAY, NAY ; 
LEST YE FALL INTO CONDEMNATION."! 

The sacred writer certainly intended to include 
in the phraseology, "any other oath," all swearing 
other than the common or familiar modes, or forms, 
to which he alludes in the several previous interdict- 
ory clauses. These words do, or do not, cover 
"judicial oaths." If they do interdict such oaths, 
then it is "judicial" profanity which is committed 
in all the courts of the land, when witnesses are 
compelled to observe the forms in which they are 
administered. If they do not include or have any 
reference at all to such oaths, then the entire clause 

*"Vid. Essays on the Principles of Morality," etc., by 
Jonathan Dymond, Part ii. Essay ii. Chap. vii. Oaths. 
t Ja. v. 12. 

10* 



226 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

of which they are the most important words hardly 
appears significant enough for a place in the text of 
St. James' scripture on swearing. The conviction 
of " many of the Christian fathers,"* who, according 
toGrotius, " condemned all oaths without exception," 
seems to us as but strictly conforming both to the ' 
letter and spirit of the New Testament. Were we 
writing a treatise on this special feature of the 
general subject of sw r earing, other considerations, as 
well, might be urged in support of our view. But 
these, for the present, must suffice. 

It is no part of our purpose to re-open, by these 
remarks, a controversy which has been agitating the 
theological w T orld now and then for centuries. We 
have plainly expressed our view on the scriptural 
authority for legal oaths, simply that the render 
may be at no loss to know how we regard them. If 
the question of the profanity of that kind of swear- 
ing were made to hinge, not on Christ's dictum con- 
cerning it, but simply on the manner in which, 
almost — perhaps it would not be very extravagant 
to say entirely — without exception it is administered 
in our courts, there are but few who w r ould not 
agree with us in condemning it as being but little 
less criminal than the " common" swearing practiced 
so often by persons who have no respect either for 
the law or for the gospel. The actual, and in ten 

*Tertullian, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom. 
Vicl. Jonathan Dymond, in loco. 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 227 

thousand instances extreme^ irreverence with which 
it is presented to witnesses whom all parties to the 
"suit at law" expect to give their testimony as if 
they were standing face to face with the all-knowing 
God, is calculated to beget in them the very feeling 
which it is absolutely necessary to the ends of jus- 
tice should, if at all possible, be prevented — the 
feeling of indifference as to the importance and 
solemnities of an oath. Yielding for a moment the 
point that the act of taking this kind of oath is not 
per se profane, yet who that has often seen the 
hurried and often really indecent mode in which it 
is observed, could make himself believe that even to 
the mind of the court itself, there was any religions 
feature attaching to it ? Happening in court at the 
moment of its administration, the first, if not the only 
impression which it could make on the mind of an 
intelligent semi-civilized heathen, not yet informed 
of the end contemplated by such a hasty judicial 
ceremony, would be that they — the parties to suit 
— were precipitating something which, though it 
appeared like a duty, or had some relation or other 
to judicial business, yet certainly was not of much 
consequence. All this in face of the fact, that the 
court holds perjury as being so serious a crime, 
that if some easy, indifferent, conscienceless witness 
be convicted of it, he will be sent to a felon's cell 
for many years. 

Admitting that it is a mooted question whether 



228 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

or not such legally-exacted swearing, even though 
observed in the most impressive manner, is a viola- 
tion of Christian law — a question, which, probably, 
will never be absolutely answered, in this life, either 
affirmatively or negatively, since there have been 
many volumes written on either side, which have 
failed to prove, satisfactorily to all consciences, the 
alleged errors of the other side — we are disposed, 
therefore, neither to justify nor condemn the reader, 
if he practically sanctions it. In the absence of 
such scriptures, touching the matter, as would ad- 
mit to all minds of but one construction, either ap- 
proving or prohibiting it, one's own moral sense of 
right and wrong, fortified by such views of the 
act as seem to him most conclusive, or as accord 
nearest with the general tenor, spirit and purpose 
of the Book of God, must determine what his prac- 
tice shall be. 

But it is not questionable, that Christ's law 
on profanity forbids, not only the grosser modes 
which have thus far constituted the burden of our 
strictures, but, as well, certain modified forms of 
swearing which many persons indulge who inno- 
cently imagine that, by not including God's name 
in them, they avoid the charge and guilt of pro- 
fanity. While Christ certainly did not mean to 
except the more direct and blasphemous abuse of 
the divine name, yet, from what we can gather con- 
cerning the immoralities of His times, it seems very 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 229 

probable, that when He "opened His mouth" to 
dissuade men from the indulgence of irreverent 
speech, He referred more directly to this very habit 
of swearing "by" anything, so that God's name is 
not spoken, than to more flagrant expressions of 
profanity. Still retaining some of the old-time 
veneration for the divine name, such as distin- 
guished their forefathers under the Mosaic, and 
subsequent royal economy, the Jews of Christ's 
day became so notoriously accustomed to this less 
harsh, or smoother style of swearing, as to excite 
the ridicule and disgust even of the heathenish 
Gentiles. To the prevalence of this seemingly in- 
nocent form of adjuration which, if we may be 
allowed to make the comparison, is really more 
cowardly than the round, outspoken oath of the 
sinner who attempts no concealment of his empti- 
ness of the fear of God, the erroneous instructions 
of their corrupt teachers — the Scribes and Phari- 
sees — largely contributed. One of their mischiev- 
ous errors was, that it was not a violation of the 
second commandment to swear by any creature. 
Another, that no oath was binding in which the 
name of God was not used. And another, that it 
was not sinful to swear in ordinary conversation, 
even by the name of God, "if what they swear 
were true." Hence Christ's exclusive, absolute 
prohibition, "Swear not at all," which, it may 
but express His real intention to say, referred, 



230 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITI . 

first, to the prevailing flippant and unnecessary use 
of God's name in common life, and, secondly, in 
His appended enumeration of several of them, to 
the current minor forms of swearing which, as He 
Himself explained,* though God's name was not 
in them, were, nevertheless, essentially profane. 
The oath-taker sometimes swore by Jerusalem, as 
the Holy City ; or by its magnificent temple, or 
altar; again by his own or some king's head, or 
life ; or by his eyes, or some other equally precious 
bodily organ ; or by the earth, the heaven, the sun, 
and by angels. f The Jewish conceit, that such 
imprecatory phases were harmless, in that they did 
not abuse the divine name, was completely destroyed 
by One whose judgment of what constitutes pro- 
fanity is simply unimpeachable. 

It is very common at the present day — this kind 
of foolish, as well as profane, phraseology. Very 
many persons habituate themselves to the use of 
terms and ejaculations which, if Ave did not know 
that they employed them as expressing the profane 
feeling that actuated them, would really mean 
nothing at all. There recurs to our memory at 
this moment an expression which used to be fre- 
quently on the lips of a distinguished personage, 
but which we dare not mention, lest it should 
make as deep and inextinguishable an impression 

*Matt. xxiii. 16-22, 
fUev. J.R, Beard, D.D. 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 231 

upon the reader's as it male upon the writer's 
mind when he first heard it — an expression so silly, 
as well as oddly profane, that it makes us feel 
almost as foolish in remembering, though we have 
honestly tried to forget it, as was the gentlemanly 
(?) swearer in uttering it. It is not, as we have 
previously shown, an innocent thing thus to conceal, 
as it were, the Supreme Being under phraseology 
which is not outside of, or does not merelv border 
upon, but, as the Master teaches, is actually within 
the limits of profanity. 

The least objection that we have to much of it, 
current in the world and popularly supposed to be 
harmless, is that it is ungrammatical, unrhetorical, 
unmusical, inelegant, and out of taste. We can 
tolerate bad grammar, faulty rhetoric and the lack 
of musical rhythm in the every-day talk, either of 
ordinary people of whom it would be quite unreason- 
able to expect extraordinary linguistic excellence, or 
of extraordinary people of whom it would be no less 
unreasonable, perhaps, to expect always a scientifi- 
cally-accurate observance of all known rules in their 
ordinary conversation. Such blunders and imper- 
fections of speech offend, at the most, but our taste, 
if we may be supposed to have any ; the only guilt 
they contract, if we may apply this word to them at 
all, is the guilt of violating the axioms of one or 
more merely human sciences, or of transgressing 
the often arbitrary rules of what is termed " polite 



232 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

society." As we are far less jealous of men's 
reputation for scholarship and merely exterior ac- 
complishments than of the honor and majesty of the 
Lord Jehovah, we care but little that their profane 
utterances so often violate mere grammatical rules. 
The scholar as such, may take exceptions to them 
as evincing ignorance of the correct or proper use 
of language. But if he be a Christian scholar, and 
neither believes that language is given us "to con- 
ceal our thoughts," nor entertains inadequate views 
of the criminality, malignity, and tendencies of the 
sin of swearing, his gravest objection to them will 
be that, though His name is studiously avoided in 
them, yet God records them as violations of His 
law sufficiently aggravating, if not repented of, to 
insure the ultimate damnation of the human soul. 
There is all the force of a full rounded oath in any 
expression to which is prefixed the particle "by," 
and which is intended to answer the purpose of an 
imprecation. Though not one of the divine names 
is mentioned in them, but merely some creature, 
whether real or imagined it matters not, or whether 
known or unknown in heaven, on earth, or in hell, 
it matters not, yet all exclamations, phrases, or ex- 
pletives to which is prefixed the monosyllable " by," 
with maledictive intent on the part of the speaker, 
are essentially oaths, and, hence, are solemnly for- 
bidden. 

Included, also, in this category of interdicted ex- 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 283 

pressions are all ejaculations in which are used one 
or another of the divine names, but to which is not 
prefixed the little word "by." There is a large 
class of such profane exclamations, some of which 
are frequently used by persons who do not deem it 
a guilty habit, and yet think it a shocking thing, 
perhaps, to swear. In a moment of surprise, or of 
disappointment, or of anger, or to give emphatic 
expression to the deep interest which something 
told them or something that has happened begets 
in them, they blurt out one or another holy name 
in a manner which is not guiltless simply because 
some other than the word "by" has been prefixed 
to it. It does not sufficiently condemn this habit 
merely to call it "unnecessary," "useless," or 
"extravagant"; it is plainly a criminal habit, in 
that it violates both the spirit and letter of the 
second commandment. 

It is in the interest of truth, honesty, righteous- 
ness — indeed of every enviable virtue — that the Bible 
says so much about our "lips" or "words"; that 
it puts restrictions upon the " tongue " ; that it for- 
bids peremptorily all intemperance of speech. Nor 
is there any means by which the highest moral ex- 
cellence may be reached more surely than by the 
conscientious observance of Christ's command, touch- 
ing our "communication." The Jews themselves 
having become accustomed to say of one whose 
probity was unimpeachable, " His yes is yes, and 



234 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

his no is no," He sanctified the popular maxim by 
incorporating it into a law — "But let youh com- 
munication BE, YEA, YEA; NAY, NAY " — which, 
strictly and universally observed, would estop more 
than half the discords, feuds, broils, contentions, 
quarrels, mischiefs, and other evils, that now afflict 
the human family. Ten thousand misunderstand- 
ings, alienations of friendly feeling, and even vexa- 
tious law-suits, would never happen if, as a rule, 
men guarded their daily speech against the faults 
of exaggeration and superfluous superlatives. It is 
often that such "communication," and never more 
than when profane expletives are superadded to it, 
must be largely discounted before we can tell what 
the speaker really means. To tell facts or things 
just as they are, without allowing passion, prejudice, 
anger, personal interest, or any other consideration 
either to magnify or diminish them, is one of the 
most distinguishing marks of an ingenuous char- 
acter. 

The reader has not often heard of a Friend who 
was convicted of a lie. The very name, " Friend," 
has become almost a synonym of peace, honesty, 
and truthfulness. There is no people on earth of 
more consistent integrity or unbending rectitude 
than the sect which the world has nicknamed 
"Quakers." A Friend's simple "yea" needs no 
adjunctive terms to make what he affirms, nor does 
; nay " need any strong expletives to make what 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 235 

he denies more credible. If he wishes to emphasize 
his affirmation or denial, which is not at all a guilty 
desire, there is no elocutionary form at once so in- 
nocent and effective as his earnest repetition of the 
particles "yea, yea; nay, nay." On hearing such 
plain, direct, unequivocal answers to your inquiries 
about one thing or another, or while engaged with 
him in familiar conversation, you believe him at 
once — you have not the least suspicion that what 
he says stands in need of corroboration. Not the 
least part of his religion is to cultivate the love of 
truth, honesty, and simplicity, in doing which he 
would come far short of the standard of excellence to 
which he religiously aspires if he failed to discipline 
his tongue . Though many , on observing it, may smile 
at his simplicity of " communication," and see noth- 
ing in it to admire, yet it certainly commends him 
more to our praise than to our ridicule that the hon- 
est, upright, inoffensive Friend should imitate the 
example and so literally observe the command of 
One whose "verily, verily" needed neither miracle 
nor logical process to prove the enunciated truths to 
which they were prefixed. 

The use of the scriptural terms "thou" and 
thee," and "yea" and "nay" in men's "commu- 
nication" with each other may never become com- 
mon nor popular. A literal observance of Christ's 
command teaching such phraseology was not ex- 
pected, perhaps, or intended by him ; and there are 



236 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

many to whom it may not appear desirable. Be 
this as it may, yet it is not doubtful that it is acting 
out the spirit of his precepts, or working towards 
the end to which it was given, to cultivate, if not 
critical simplicity, yet certainly purity of language 
on all occasions. Our daily speech is to be so truth- 
ful that it shall excite in no one the least suspicion 
of our veracity ; so pure that it shall never suggest 
a foul idea to others' imagination; so amiable that 
it shall never give offense to any one ; so prudent 
that it shall bring neither ourselves nor others into 
trouble ; and so respectful, if religious matters are 
mentioned, that no one's conscience or reverence 
for sacred things shall be wounded. Borrowing his 
metaphor from graceless Grecian wits whose ob- 
scene and profane jests were applauded by their 
heathenish fellows as being "Attic salt," and apply- 
ing it to our daily converse, which, like the Lamb by 
whose blood we have been redeemed from sin, should 
be "without blemish and without spot," it is as well 
the pleasing relish with which such cultivated speech 
is enjoyed by the truly refined as the purity which 
belongs to it that St. Paul represents where he says, 
"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned 
with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer 
every man."* Should any object that such perfec- 
tion of speech is hardly possible of attainment, it 
may be sufficient to reply that Scripture never en- 

*Col. iv. 6. 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 237 

joins upon us impossible or impracticable things, 
and that this very excellence entered into St. James' 
ideal of finished character: "If any man offend not 
in word, the same is a perfect man."* 

We beg the reader, if he has followed us thus far 
in our exposure of the hideous features of the vice 
of profanity and is not yet convinced of its guilti- 
ness, not to give place to the self-assuring notion, 
that we are but magnifying an offense, or habit, 
which after all is not very serious, or damaging to 
one's well-being. Our views of its enormity are 
certainly sustained both by the letter and the spirit 
of the Word of God, while, if he thoughtfully con- 
siders the gracious end to which it is given us, he 
will as certainly sanction even the severest strictures 
which any ^inspired pen may score against it. 
To the thought of the apostle whom we have named 
above, and whose strong interdiction of the sin was 
inspired by the very Holy Being of whose honor 
and glory he was so jealous, it must have appeared 
as a form of wickedness which has no parallel 
in baseness and malignity. Not that his estimate 
of the heinous character of other sins was incom- 
plete, or insufficient, but — hardly more, indeed, to 
his own than other Christian minds — the habit of 
profanity was too peculiarly wanton and aggravating 
not to be specially condemned. Hence his remark- 
able language — remarkable in that it seems to sink, 

* James iii. 2. 



288 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

or conceal, all other sins as not being comparable 
with it in guiltiness. "But above all things, 
my brethren, swear not." 

Solomon says, in effect, that swearing is the vice 
of an impotent fool, or that it is no less an expres- 
sion of weakness than of wickedness. The blatant, 
shameless curser who, in the heat of passion, 
scatters his oaths about him in every direction, 
should feel thankful, if his moral nature has not 
become too indurated to be c(uickened by such a 
feeling, that his maledictions, uttered so often with- 
out reason, motive, or, as he himself has confessed, 
perhaps, without "meaning anything," are as 
powerless, or ineffectual, as that wise man repre- 
sents them — " As the bird by wandering, as the 
swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not 
come."* 

Whatever may be the hidden meaning of the 
visions of the apocalyptic seer, it is remarkably sig- 
nificant of the horridness of the crime of profanity, 
that, in one of them, not a maddened human being 
but a monstrous savage beast, to which was tempo- 
rarily given one of the distinguishing properties of 
human nature, and this the power of speech, is de- 
picted as indulging it to a fearful extent ; — 

" And there was given unto him," — the beast — 
"a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies: 

*Prov. xxvi. 2. 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 239 

and power was given unto him to continue forty and 
two months. 

"And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against 
God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, 
and them that dwell in heaven.''* 

It is a sin so utterly foolish, and so inconsistent 
with the profession of integrity, that the truly wise 
and upright will never countenance it. It was a 
satisfaction, indeed, wdiich Job felt in protesting that 
he had never cursed an enemy — "Neither have I 
suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his 
soul."f 

They certainly are wot friends of God who thus 
persist in abusing His name. David describes, in a 
single period, at once their spirit, their attitude 
towards, or relation to Him and their d?aiger — 
" Thine enemies take thy name in vain." \ Certainly 
their expectations can only be wrath, since the very 
term "enemy," as applied to the bold, daring, pre- 
sumptuous sinner against God is a prophecy of his 
fearful doom. The day may not be far off when 
He will say Amen to the imprecations of such 
enemies. His fiat having gone "forth over the 
face of the whole earth," that "every one that 
sweareth shall be cut off,"| He " will come near 
to" them, in judgment, and "will be a swift witness 

*Kev. xiii. 5, 6. f Job. xxxi. 30. 

\ Ps. cxxxix. 20, || Zee. v. 3. 



240 ■ THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

against"* them. Turning their curses upon their 
own heads ? to their repeated challenge, that He 
should "damn" them, He will surely respond, 
Amen — be it so ! 

In one way or another this fearful vice affects 
seriously all our interests, personal, social, and 
religious. Nor is it exaggerating its destructive 
importance or ascribing to it an evil, corrupting 
influence too powerful and far-reaching, to assert 
that it endangers even our national well-being. 
The pathos of Jeremiah's lamentation over suffering 
Judah, coming down the ages and wafted westward 
over the great deep, may yet find expression in 
some sad refrain echoing from hill to hill of our own 
proud land. Touchingly graphic is his description 
of a fearful, divine visitation under which his people 
were afflicted almost beyond endurance : 

" Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; 
they are black unto the ground ; and the cry of Je- 
rusalem is gone up. 

" And their nobles have sent their little ones to 
the waters ; they came to the pits, and found no 
w T ater ; they returned with their vessels empty ; they 
were ashamed and confounded, and covered their 
heads. 

" Because the ground is chapt, for there was no 
rain in the earth, the ploughmen were ashamed, they 
covered their heads. 

*Mal. iii. 5. 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. - 241 

"Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and for- 
sook it, because there was no grass. 

"And the wild asses did stand in the high places, 
they snuffed up the wind like dragons ; their eyes 
did fail, because there was no grass."* 

Sympathizing so deeply with his suffering country 
it was alike his pure patriotism — an instinct of hu- 
man nature scarcely less strong than the love of our 
own offspring — and loyalty to his Maker that 
prompted his fearful denunciations of popular sins 
and prophecies of furthur and still more terrible 
retribution if the people failed to repent of them. 
There were great "iniquities" which "testified 
against" them, and of which the Lord had said, 
" Shall I not visit them for these things ? * * * 
shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as 
this?"f and one of them is thus recorded by the 
faithful prophet: 

"BECAUSE OF SWEARING THE LAND 
MOURNETH." £ 

When the Israelites insolently demanded " a king 
over" them, that they might "also be like all the 
nations," || and God gave them Saul in his anger,§ it 
is not on record in Scripture nor in the annals of 

*Jer. xiv. 2-6. fJer. ix. 9. 

t Jer. xxiii. 10. || 1 Sam. viii. 19, 20. 

§Ho. xiii. 11. 
11 



242 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

profane history that He utterly resigned His provi- 
dential relation to all the peoples of the earth. Re- 
sponding in his wrath to their offensive overture by 
appointing "a king" whose reign became to them 
more a penalty to be endured for their rebellion 
against Him than such a privilege as they had im- 
agined visible kingship among them to be, if He 
ceased, therefore, to serve them as their supreme 
political head, yet from that epoch of their history 
down even to the present day, Israel, and as well 
all contemporaneous peoples, have observed more or 
less remarkable evidences of the truth that God is 
the great moral Ruler of mankind. The nations of 
the earth are much more independent of each other 
than of him. God reigns! 

"There is a power 
Unseen, that rules the illimitable world, 
That guides its motions from the brightest star 
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould ; 
While man, who madly deems himself the lord 
Of all, is naught but weakness and dependence."* 

God rules ! Down through the ages and from 
quarters of the earth where once flourished the most 
powerful empires, but of whose walled cities not one 
stone is left upon another, there comes a voice 
which it is perilous for any existing people as such 
to ignore. It is the voice of the Lord God Omni- 
potent — 

* Thomson . 



WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 243 

" I WILL BE EXALTED IN THE EARTH."* 

It may seem physically impossible that our own 
beloved land, "flowing with milk and honey" as it 
is, and becoming, as it is to a large extent, the 
granan r of the world, should ever be visited by 
such a fearful general drouth as is so graphically 
pictured by Jeremiah as afflicting Judah. To skep- 
tical minds the suggestion that God may yet visit 
us with such a calamity on account of our national 
sins may seem quite incredible. But Christ's 
dictum is a sufficient answer to such unbelief in 
Providence — "With men this is impossible: but 
with God all things are possible."! What are 
physical impossibilities to us whose knowledge of 
nature is limited to a few palpable things immedi- 
ately around us, are not impossibilities to Him 
before Avhom lie open the arcana of the universe. 

Besides this, His resources are infinite. God's 
quiver is full of arrows ; and while none ever misses 
its aim, or all are equally effective, yet He chooses 
now one and then another, in His warfare against 
the wicked, to humble them in the dust — a warfare 
in which He has often challenged nations as well as 
individual sinners to try arms with Him. Leaving 
much unwritten which might here be produced as 
illustrating His moral government of the peoples of 
the earth, we commend to the reader's attention, in 

*Ps. xlvi. 10. fMat. xix. 26. 



244 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

concluding this chapter, Southey's scriptural as well 

as rhythmical periods, as expressing the belief of all 

Christendom touching the "Fate of Nations." 

"But deem not thou some overruling Fate, 
Directing all things with benign decree, 
Through all the turmoil of this mortal state, 

Appoints that what is best shall therefore be : 
Even as from man his future doom proceeds, 
So nations rise or fall, according to their deeds. 

"The individual culprit may sometimes 
Unpunished to his after-reckoning go : 

Not thus collective man ; for public crimes 
Draw on their proper punishment below : 

When nations go astray, from age to age 

The effects remain, a fatal heritage. 

' ' Bear witness, Egypt, thy huge monuments 
Of priestly fraud and tyranny austere ! 
Bear witness thou, whose only name presents 

All holy feelings to religion dear — 
In earth's dark circlet once the precious gem 
Of living light— fallen Jerusalem ! " 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 
FS it not the bounden duty of professed Christians, 
-^- and, as well, of all non-professors who entertain 
a just sense of the worth and dignity of moral char- 
acter, to correct this vice, to the full extent of their 
power ? It is a precept whose force and importance 
the lapse of thirty-three centuries has not weakened 
" Thou shalt in anywise rebuke thy neighbor, and 
not suffer sin upon him."* 

In many instances of neglect of this command, on 
the part of avowed Christians, so far as it concerns 
the vice in question, there is evinced more a want 
of moral courage to discharge the duty than real 
fear of losing the esteem of the swearer. He is 
not rebuked — the shameless offender — not that the 
Christian too deeply respects him to wound his feel- 
ings, which is simply incredible, since no true 
Christian can sincerely respect a man who, in his 
presence, will deliberately blaspheme his Maker, 
but that he is too cowardly to attack his sin. Is 
it not a fact that should make us blush, that a 
vast amount of sin in the world might be pre- 
vented, or corrected, were Christians universally, as 
their profession requires of them, a little more 

* Lev. xix. 17. 
( 245 ) 



246 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

heroic in their spirit and attitude towards it? The 
Christian who is afraid to do his duty betrays such 
a lack of confidence in the presence and power of 
the Master as should make him ashamed of himself; 
and he who is forever sensitively or fastidiously 
revolving the u expediency," and seldom, if ever 
manfully considers as well the necessity of things, 
will very likely die at last and leave the world no 
better for the life that he spent in it. However 
self-pleased such a person may feel, on reviewing 
his life in its last hours, if time, memory and reason 
enough are left him for such an exercise, that he 
never offended any one — a very negative satisfac- 
tion, indeed — yet there will be wanting in such a 
retrospection the positive pleasure of knowing that 
he has done some good in the world, although it 
may have been done blunderingly. 

It is remarkable that His own people, professedly 
entertaining the deepest reverence for Him, should 
ever consent to hear God's name abused without re- 
buking the sinner. And it is more than remarkable 
— it is astonishing, indeed — that any really godly 
person should both consent, thus, to hear the blas- 
phemy of the wicked in his presence, and not only 
not rebuke it, but actually smile, perhaps laugh at 
it, as if it afforded him amusement. A frown, not a 
smile, is a more fitting facial response to such im- 
piety — an indignant protest rather than a hearty 
laugh. A look like the wounded Redeemer's, 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 247 

which sent convicted Peter into a corner suffused 
with penitential tears, may at least impress the 
offender with a sense of his impropriety, if not con- 
vict him. of sin. Or, if you cannot send the iron of 
conviction into his soul by a look as expressive as 
the Redeemer's, then a word, tenderly spoken, 
uttered in a manner revealing how deeply you, as a 
Christian, have been wounded by his — the swearer's 
■ — profanity, may find entrance into his conscience 
" as a nail in a sure place," and work in him serious 
thought, and ultimately repentance. It is a shock- 
ing species of fun, reader, to which he stoops, who, 
though made in the image of God, yet makes His 
holy name the staple of, or uses it to give edge to, 
his jests. Such a jester shall ultimately discover 
that his wit was a two-edged sword, that wounded as 
well himself as others at whom it was aimed. His 
humour is a blessing to no one. Destructive, as it 
is, of that sensitive reverence which every human 
creature should ever cultivate towards his Creator, 
it should not, therefore, be countenanced in any 
manner whatever. An immortal being, as revela- 
tion compels us to regard him, though for his own 
good we could wish that he were not, so long as he 
remained unconvinced of the enormity of his guilt, 
yet there seem to be " but two marks of a man 
about him, upright stature, and the power of play- 
ing the fool, which a monkey has not. 5 '* Pity it 

* Young. 



248 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

is, that when the swearer shocks others' ears by his 
irrational profanity, he cannot at the same time 
frighten himself out of the vile practice. If his 
own ears have become so accustomed to the profan- 
ity of his tongue that they have ceased to burn, as 
it were, with shame, how should others, and especi- 
ally Christian ears, be on their guard against such 
a loss of moral sensitiveness. 

Is there much difference in guiltiness between the 
man who by his vulgar oaths insults his Maker, and 
his friend, or boon companion, standing by, who by 
his merriment endorses the flagitious act as a proper 
object of amusement? Does not he become acces- 
sory to another's sin, and, if accessory, then, in a 
sense, guilty of it, who, though he could prevent it, 
yet makes no effort to do so ? Is not he parti ceps 
criminis — a party to the crime — who, by any 
movement, though it be but a smile of approbation, 
prompts or stimulates a sinner to violate divine or 
human law ? Thus appears the sin of not rebuking 
sin, when it can be done with any probability of 
saving results. To any mind disposed to give this 
important duty the thought it deserves, it cannot 
seem an impossible thing, that guilt is contracted by 
neglecting it. "As he who stands by and sees 
another commit murder without giving an alarm is 
accounted accessory to the murder; or as he who 
sees a blind man running into a pit, in which heis 
drowned, and makes no effort to save him, is guilty 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 249 

of death ; so is he who sees his brother kill his soul 
without an effort to prevent it." 

It is a false delicacy of feeling that prevents the 
Christian friends of a swearer, if he has such 
friends, from expressing their judgment of the 
enormity of his sin ; that frames pretexts for the 
neglect of a duty taught in Scripture, if not as 
frequently, yet no less plainly than that of prayer ; 
that declines to express even a hint that he is 
violating the divine law, lest they — the reprovers — 
should be thought too officious, or puritanic, or over- 
righteous. Such inexcusable fastidiousness was 
once shamed by a king who had been himself re- 
buked for his profanity. Riding along the highway 
in disguise, and seeing a soldier at an inn, he 
stopped and asked him to drink ale with him. On 
an oath which the king spurted out while they were 
drinking the soldier remarked : 

"I am sorry to hear young gentlemen swear." 

His majesty took no notice of it, but swore 
again. The soldier immediately said : 

"I'll pay part of the pot, if you please, and go; 
for I so hate swearing, that if you were the king 
himself I should tell you of it." 

" Should you, indeed?" asked the king. 

"I should," was the emphatic reply of his sub- 
ject, 

Not long after, the king gave him an opportunity 
to be " as good as his word." Having invited some 
11* 



250 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

lords to dine with him, he sent for the soldier, and 
bade him to stand near him, in order to serve him, 
if he were needed. Presently the king, not now 
in disguise, uttered an oath. Very deferentially 
the soldier immediately said: 

" Should not my lord and king fear an oath ? " 

Looking at the heroic soldier, and then at his 
company of obsequious noblemen, the king severely 
remarked: 

" There, my lords, is an honest man; he can 
respectfully remind me of the great sin of sw r earing, 
but you can sit here and let me stain my soul by 
swearing, and not so much as tell me of it! " Was 
not the king's condemnation of his courtiers, for 
their lack of moral courage, as truly deserved as his 
commendation of the faithful soldier ? 

As true as severe was the reply — at once a retort 
and rebuke — which a traveler once made to a 
coahman who said to him : 

" That horse, sir, knows when I swear at him." 

" Yes," said the travellei, " and so does your 
Maker." 

It was the rebuke of "a woman of the town," 
so vile herself that she w T as shunned by all decent 
people, that excited in him serious thought on the 
wickedness of swearing, and brought to repentance 
the now immortalized John Bunyan, the author of 
that unrivalled allegory, the "Pilgrim's Progress," 
a work which has had a larger circulation in the 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 251 

world of literature, the Bible only excepted, than 
any other ever issued from the press. The fact 
that he was so profane as to excite the horror and 
occasion the reproof of an abandoned woman, stung 
him to the quick, and led to his conviction of sin 
and conversion to Christ. It is hardly probable 
that his reprover really intended, by her rebuke, to 
do good; yet the results of her incidentally good 
act are known and felt even down to the present 
day. 

The amount of good which it is in the power 
more or less of every Christian to accomplish in this 
easy manner is simply incalculable. A volume of 
illustrations to this effect might be written, but one 
or two may here suffice. a A merchant and ship- 
owner of New York was standing at the entrance of 
his warehouses conversing with a gentleman on 
business. A pious sailor* belonging to one of his 

* As on a dark night, here and there, a bright star peers 
down upon us through the rifts of ominous clouds, twink- 
ling in our faces the welcome intelligence that the heav- 
ens are not all blackness ; or, as when traveling through 
a desert or barren region of country, we are glad to see 
something, here and there, that is beautiful, though it be 
but an isolated flower, lifting its crown heavenward in 
spite of the surrounding desolation; so when pitifully peer- 
ing through the moral darkness resting upon certain 
classes of sinners, how it gladdens us to discover a little 
virtue still glimmering, here and there, among them — a 
sense of moral responsibility of truth or goodness that 
will not expire in spite of the extinguishing influences 



252 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

vessels, came to the warehouse to enter it, but 
observing that the door was occupied, modestly 
stepped aside, not willing to interrupt the conversa- 
tion. While waiting there he heard the name of 
Jesus profanely used ; and on turning to look, he 
observed that it was his employer who was speak- 
ing. Instantly changing his position, and standing 
in front of the gentleman, with his head uncovered, 
and his hat under his arm, he addressed the mer- 
chant in this language — 

" ' Sir, will you excuse me if I speak a word to 
you?' 

" The gentleman recognized him as one of the crew 
of his vessel recently arrived, and supposing he 
might have something to say about the business of 
the ship, told him to speak on. 

" 4 You won't be offended, then, sir, with a poor 
ignorant sailor if he tells you his feelings ?' said he. 

" ' Certainly not,' replied the merchant. 

" ' Well, then, sir,' said the sailor, with much feel- 
ing, ' will you be so kind as not to take the name of 
my blessed Jesus in vain ? He is a good Saviour. 
He "took my feet out of the horrible pit and miry 

acting upon it. The possibility of the salvation of the 
worst sinners on earth is suggested by the adjective which 
is above applied to one of a host of indispensable workers, 
of whom anything meritorious is but seldom spoken. It 
is but recording a triumph of the gospel to be permitted 
to write such a touching incident as is above quoted, of a 
pious sailor. 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFAHITY. 253 

clay, and established my goings/' sir! don't 3 if 

you please, take the name of my Master, the Lord 
Jesus, in vain ! He is your Creator as well as 
mine : and He has made you, and preserves you, 
and is always doing you good.' 

" This was said with so much earnestness and feel- 
ing that the gentleman was quite touched. His 
exe^ filled with tears, and he said. 

" ' My good fellow, God helping me, I will never 
again take the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Saviour, in vain. 5 

u ' Thank you, sir,' said the honest sailor ; and 
putting on his tarpaulin, he went away to his 
work.''* 

Was he not in the line of duty in thus "standing 
up for Jesus?" And what better or truer friend on 
earth had the profane i4 gentleman" than his ser- 
vant, the pious sailor? 

" A clergyman riding beside a profane coachman 
who discharged volley after volley of oaths, fixing 
his eyes upon him, said : 

ic ; I cannot imagine what you will do in heaven ! 
There are no horses, or coaches, or saddles, or 
bridles, or public-houses, in heaven. There will be 
no one to swear at, or to whom you can use bad 
language. I cannot think what you will do when 
you get to heaven!' 

*JVcifl Encydop'idio. of Prose Illustrations, By Rev. Elon 
Foster. 



254 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

u Years after, the same clergyman was called to 
see a dying man, who told him that he was saved 
through his rebuke, ' I cannot think what you will 
do in heaven !' " 

To the Christian who is sincerely anxious to do good 
in the w r orld, who is not, and should not be, content 
without doing something for Him who served the 
world even to the sacrifice of His life, many prudent 
expedients, or means, will suggest themselves by 
which he may arrest and fix the attention of the 
irreligious upon their easily-besetting sins. We 
once knew a good man, now in heaven, who, before 
he left his home to walk the streets, for one purpose 
or another, was in the habit of folding up a religious 
tract in a small square, and concealing it in the hol- 
low of his right hand. On meeting some thought- 
less, irreligious friend or acquaintance, and extend- 
ing his hand to him, he would quietly slip it into his 
possession, without uttering a word, in a formal 
manner, on the subject of religion. Doubtless it is 
his to know to-day something of the glory so graphi- 
cally set forth by the prophet, " And they that be 
wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; 
and they that turn many to righteousness as the 
stars forever and ever."* You are writing a letter to 
some thoughtless friend; a single, brief sentence in 
it, touching some objectionable habit on his part, may 

• * Dan. xii. 3. 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 255 

do him more good than a hundred eloquent sermons. 
To some one whom you highly esteem you are about 
to present a book, as an evidence of your friend- 
ship ; it would neither detract from the merit or value 
of the book, nor injure the fly-leaf, to write upon it 
some favorite scripture — it may become as precious 
to him as to yourself. 

You may smile, reader, at such suggestions. But 
look, if you will, at the innumerable little and great 
expedients and devices used by the world to gain 
merely secular ends ! How this busy, driving world 
tortures its inventive genius for new modes of mak- 
ing known its businesses, and, hence, of securing 
patronage and temporal wealth. Witness, for in- 
stance, the advertisements in the newspapers ; some 
are even upside down ; others are illustrated by 
cuts ; others, though containing but comparatively 
few words, are made to occupy the space of an en- 
tire column ; and still others are arranged in strange, 
even grotesque or fantastic forms. All sorts of 
modes are used to catch the reader's eye, and en- 
gage his attention. Witness, too, the signs, mot- 
toes, and artifices exposed to view along the busi- 
ness streets of town or city. A stroll through the 
busy marts of the metropolis would be worth the time 
it required, and the fatigue it occasioned, simply to 
note the wonderful art and ingenuity which the world 
uses to arrest your eye, and divert your steps into its 
places of trade and traffic. Shall so much ingenu- 






256 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

ity, and art, and tact — so much planning and con- 
triving, on the part of the world, in order to the at- 
tainment of purely temporal ends — be commended, 
and none be allowed for the infinitely greater object 
of saving souls? How long shall "the children of 
this world " be " Aviser in their generation than the 
children of light?"* 

Whatever authority attaches to the relations we 
sustain to each other, should be exercised to the in- 
terdiction of this vice. No father should admit a 
swearer into companionship with his family. The 
hallowed enclosure of "home, sweet home," should 
ever be closed — barred and bolted — against his 
visits, or " calls," who cannot be entertaining with- 
out being wicked. It certainly cannot enhance the 
pleasure of a family-circle, w^here just sentiments are 
cultivated towards the Supreme Being, to hear His 
name needlessly interjected in conversation, or used 
in any other than a purely religious connection. If 
there be a family-circle where it is a matter of in- 
difference that one or more of its number, or some 
other person happening in, now and then uses pro- 
fanely the name of God ; or where it is not thought 
to be a very objectionable practice to use the dia- 
lect of the low and abandoned ; there, it may be 
prophesied without the aid of inspiration, that any- 
thing but the happiness which is divinely intended 
by the family organization will ever prevail. It is 

* Luke xvi. 8. 






HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 257 

of infinite importance to the well-being of children, 
that a religious atmosphere should pervade the home 
of their early years. More dangerous than the in- 
visible miasma which, unwittingly inhaled, incorpor- 
ates its poison into the very blood of the physical 
man and works his death, is the foul breath of the 
swearer in a family-circle. This pollutes the soul ; 
that destroys only the body. The loss in the one 
case is but of temporal life, while in the other, some 
one of that family-circle — it may be the brightest 
and most promising of the little ones — is made to 
incur the fearful risk of losing eternal life. As soon 
think of welcoming a Herod into your home to slay 
your innocents, as to allow a common swearer fre- 
quent access to your family-circle. Such a familiar 
acquaintance is not the less a dangerous enemy to 
your home interests, in that he visits you often 
under the guise of a friend. Better let your little 
ones never hear it at all, if this be possible in a 
Christian land, than let them hear from the lips of 
any one, if he can be avoided, only profanations of 
God's name. Rebuke the man who dares to dese- 
crate your fireside by irreverent expressions. If it 
offends him, though you do it never so kindly, be it 
so ; the moral character of your children is of far 
greater worth to you than his friendship who, by his 
profanity in your house, proves his want of respect 
for three parties — his Maker, your family-circle, and 
himself. 



258 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

No young woman should encourage the addresses 
of a swearer. Enamored as she may become of 
such a suitor for her hand and heart, because of 
some admirable qualities he may possess, yet it is 
running a serious risk to pledge her "troth" at the 
marriage-altar, and, too, for a lifetime, to one who 
is utterly trothless or faithless towards his Maker. 
She cannot reasonably expect that a man who can so 
easily violate the first and easiest duty that he owes 
his Creator, reverence, should ever become very 
strict and rigid in observing the duties that he would 
owe to a wife. Like " dead flies " in " the ointment 
of the apothecary," the " little folly" of swearing, 
as she might feel disposed to call it before she wed- 
ded him, may afterward so far corrupt the good 
qualities which she admired in him, that instead of 
the kind and indulgent husband she expected, she 
would find herself allied for life to a swearing tyrant. 
If such considerations as personal appearance, social 
connection, and ability to make a livelihood, are im- 
portant to a young woman contemplating matri- 
mony, much more is the single qualification of moral 
character in her suitor. If this is questionable, and 
by reason of this fact more than any other, mar- 
riage appears to her, indeed, " a lottery," instead 
of risking her happiness in his guardianship, she had 
better give herself "the benefit of the doubt" by 
dismissing her profane suitor. 

All the pow r er to enforce discipline, attaching to 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 259 

men in authority over others, should be used to the 
prevention or correction of this horrid vice. "The 
law of this ship," said a merchant to the captain, 
while making a contract with him for a voyage to 
India, "is, that there shall be no swearing either by 
captain or crew." The captain expressed a willing- 
ness to reform; "but," said he, "how can I sud- 
denly break off an inveterate habit?" Handing 
him a ring on which was inscribed the motto, " Swear 
not at all," the merchant replied, " I will take care 
that you are reminded of your duty — wear this ring, 
and let the law of the vessel be explicitly known." 
The vessel sailed for India, and eventually returned, 
and it was found, on inquiry, that excepting within 
the first few days after leaving port, there had been 
no profaneness on board. The sailor's " inveterate 
habit" had been destroyed. 

Before he engaged his clerks, a merchant of 
Edinburgh was accustomed to put this question to 
them, "Do you swear? If so, you need not think 
of entering my house. I permit none to talk to my 
customers whose tongues are ' set on fire of hell.' ' 

When St. Paul's "Cathedral, in London, was in 
process of erection, the distinguished architect, Sir 
Christopher Wren, caused a printed notice to be 
affixed to the scaffolding, threatening with instant 
dismissal any workman guilty of this wicked prac- 
tice. That a master builder, or foreman of a shop, 
or superintendent of a factory, has a right thus to 



260 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

dictate and enforce rules affecting the moral charac- 
ter of his workmen or operatives, will be denied 
only by those who entertain false and dangerous 
views of what constitutes personal liberty. To em- 
ployees who may feel restive under such restrictions, 
whose propensity to the vice in question has become 
so strong as almost to anger them when it is denied 
gratification, it should be sufficient to know that the 
will of the employer or proprietor is the law of his 
establishment. And when it is considered that such 
moral rules or regulations, enacted by employers, 
whose right to make them is unquestionable, are 
calculated no less to advance the best interests of 
the employees themselves than to promote the pros- 
perity of the business or work that engages their 
time, it is difficult to conceive what reasonable ob- 
jection could be offered for not printing and posting 
them where all could read and ponder them in every 
place m the land where workmen, in large or small 
numbers, daily congregate. 

It is gratifying to know that the immortal Wash- 
ington cultivated a strong aversion to this vice of 
profanity. He was scarcely a month Commander- 
in-Chief of the Continental Army before he bore 
unequivocal testimony against it. In one of his 
first orders, as a military general, he says that, "he 
hopes the officers will, by example as well as in- 
fluence, endeavor to check it, and that both they 
and the men will reflect that we can have little hope 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 261 

of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult 
it by our impiety and folly." As illustrating how 
deeply this mean vice, when practiced under his 
notice, affected his manly nature, and, as an item of 
historic interest to the reader, we shall here re- 
produce, in full, one of his orders on swearing : 

Headqtjartebs, Moore's House, > 
West Point, July 29, 1779. > 

Many and pointed orders have been issued against that 
unmeaning and abominable custom of swearing, notwith- 
standing which, with much regret, the General observes 
that it prevails, if possible, more than ever; his feelings 
are continually wounded by the oaths and imprecations 
of the soldiers whenever he is in hearing of them. 

The name of that Being from whose bountiful goodness 
we are permitted, to exist and enjoy the comforts of life, 
is incessantly imprecated and profaned in a manner as 
wanton as it is shocking. For the sake, therefore, of re- 
ligion, decency, and order, the General hopes and trusts 
that the officers of every rank will use their influence and 
authority to check a vice which is as unprofitable as it is 
wicked and shameful. 

If officers would make it an unavoidable rule to repri- 
mand, and, if that does not do, punish soldiers for offences 
of this kind, it could not fail of having the desired effect. 

George Washington. 

These hints and suggestions from the pen of our 
beloved Washington — the first military chieftain of 
the American Republic — as to how this vice may 
be suppressed among our soldiery, are certainly 
worthy of experiment on their part whom the gov- 
ernment has invested with any degree of military 
authority. 



262 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

It is much to be regretted, that the laws enacted 
against profanity now and then, by our respective 
state legislatures, are not enforced. The interest 
that prompts it cannot be real, else with the enact- 
ment there would certainly be detailed means by 
which it might be executed — means, at all events, 
more effectual than such as are usually ordered by 
such legislation. As an empty compliment to the 
religious sentiment of the Commonwealth, or in a 
sort of feverish excitement of their moral sense, our 
wise legislators gravely — some, indeed, discuss and 
act upon the matter, more as if they were about to 
perpetrate a good joke than to enact a criminal law 
— vote, that the person who blasphemes his Maker 
shall be held, too, as committing a crime against the 
interests of the State ; and, therefore, shall be pun- 
ished. But the enactment is scarcely worth the 
time consumed in its discussion, or the paper on 
which it is engrossed, for the well-known reason 
that it is very seldom, if ever, enforced. It is 
doubtful whether for many years there has been a 
single instance of arrest and conviction for profanity 
in a majority of our United States, while in the 
others it is not known that any such instance has 
ever transpired ; although it is probable that there 
is not a State in the Union which has no law forbid- 
ding the crime. Maryland has recently exhibited 
signs of consciousness of the enormity and increase 
of the vice. Her legislators re-enacted an old law, 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 263 

" to punish by fine and imprisonment in jail, at the 

discretion of the court, any person who shall pro- 
fanely curse and swear or use obscene language on 
or near any street or highway within the hearing of 
any person passing." Though the wit of her sec- 
ular press which, commenting on this legislative ac- 
tion, su jested that she would be obliged to in- 
crease largely her number of jails, may excite a 
smile, yet it covers this most melancholy and humil- 
iating confession, that immorality prevails to such 
an extent within her borders, that her present 
means of enforcing laws looking to its prevention, 
or correction, are incompetent to this end. 

If it be not a mere figment of superstitious belief, 
but a truth which hardly needs historic proof to 
make it credible, and which is not less acknowledged 
by legislators than by divines, that a nation's best 
guarantee of perpetuity lies in the moral princij)le3 
by which it is actuated ; or that there is no surer 
promise than gross immorality, if not of its utter ex- 
tinction yet of its ultimate disintegration, or of such 
derangements and disorders in society as would 
make it almost impossible to preserve the mere 
forms of government, what criminal inconsistency it 
is that any State of this boastful Republic should 
solemnly and officially enact a law stamping pro- 
fanity as a crime against its peace and good order, 
yet neither define the means by which it shall be 
executed, nor even expect that it will be executed at 



264 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

all. Does not such legislation rather encourage 
than suppress the vice ? Is it not the merest farce, 
with which "the powers that be" expect to quiet 
for a time the religious sensibilities of the better 
portions of their constituencies ? It is, at all events, 
a moral entertainment which has long since lost its 
attractiveness to the Christian mind of the state or 
nation. 

The frequency of perjury in this irreverent age 
should quicken, one would think, their apprehension 
of still greater evils, if there be any other that can 
work greater injury upon the commonwealth, whom 
the people elect to serve them as guardians of the 
public weal. The tendency from the habit of com- 
mon swearing to the formal and illegal act of per- 
jury is very easy and natural. A man who, on any 
occasion when the impulse seizes him — the impulse 
of anger or of "fun " — can unblushingly appeal to 
God as vouching for some thoughtless, perhaps 
wicked assertion, can hardly be supposed to have 
suddenly become so conscientious that he would let 
the mere formal act of kissing the Bible, in response 
to the mechanically-expressed challenge of the clerk 
of the court, prevent him from telling a lie ; espe- 
cially if a full revelation of what he knew of the 
matter at issue before the court would somewhat re- 
flect upon himself. It is antecedently improbable 
that such a witness should deeply appreciate the 
sanctities of an oath. If his religious convictions 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 265 

are so feeble, or his sense of moral responsibility is 
so indifferent, that ordinarily he is not restrained 
thereby from committing the less offence of pro- 
faning the divine name — less only that the law takes 
no notice of it — it is not at all likely that the cir- 
cumstances confronting him in a court-room will im- 
press him so deeply, or work such a change in his 
moral feelings, that he will fear to incur the guilt of 
the greater offence of perjury. There is no regen- 
erative efficacy in judicial swearing. The presence 
of "the court," the flippant, and often really irre- 
liofious manner of administering the religious obliga- 
tion of an oath, the vexatious badgering of rival 
lawyers — such incidents of the court-room exert 
no such sanctifying influence upon a common swearer 
as will make him, for the time being, conscientious 
enough to tell a story that everybody will believe. 
Having cast off all fear of God — a fact which his 
daily profanity clearly proves — it would be a re- 
markable instance, indeed, of instantaneous conver- 
sion if, in the atmosphere of the bench and the bar, 
he was suddenly seized with such reverential awe of 
Him as would make him hesitate to appeal to Him, 
through a judicial oath, to witness a falsehood. Our 
suspicion of the veracity of such a witness is almost 
irrepressible. We cannot easily shake off the con- 
viction that his long indulgence of a sin which is so 
very hateful to the Divine Being that, singling it 
out from all others denounced in the decalogue, He 
12 



266 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

gave it special prominence as being prohibited, dis- 
qualifies him for the taking of a judicial oath; and 
it is the deliberate judgment of many thoughtful 
moralists that it should absolutely debar him from 
assuming its solemn obligations. 

CD O 

While we would hesitate to declare that we would 
not believe under oath every swearer called to act 
as a witness in suits at law, yet we have no hesita- 
tion in stating that of all the reasons that might be 
given for not believing under oath such a witness, 
there is none of more force, to our mind, than the 
naked, ugly fact that he is a common swearer. In 
such a character there is not sufficient veneration 
for the Supreme Being to suggest the thought that 
perjury is a very grave crime. 

These hints on the evident natural relation, of 
common swearing to perjury, intimate as well what 
our law-administrators should do to suppress the 
vice. If it tends so directly and surely to perjury 
— a crime which would completely defeat all the 
ends of justice were our courts but half as indul- 
gent of it as they are of common profanity — it is 
certainly in the line of their official duties, while 
the moral and material interests of the Common- 
wealth would be made much more secure and enjoy- 
able, to use the strong arm of the law — a "terror" 
only to " evil-doers" — to prevent it, so far as law 
can do so. Stricter legislation is not asked for, 
but more efficient means of executing the statutes 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 267 

on profanity, which, though beautifully engrossed 
on the books of the legislature, we would hardly 
know had any existence at all, if the press did not 
report them to the public now and then. 

Nor should the pulpit fail to handle this hideous 
vice "without gloves." It is so very common in 
the world, and, as stated in a former chapter, is 
practiced in so many instances by professed church 
members, that we can hardly regard the minister 
as coming up to the full measure of his duty who 
neglects to excoriate it as it deserves. It is all 
very well to be flying heavenward every Sunday on 
the wings of impassioned eloquence, with a congre- 
gation of several hundred — perhaps a thousand — 
enraptured hearers gazing at our flight with admir- 
ation, and wishing, perhaps, that they, too, could 
set there so easilv and beautifully. But mean- 
while the people should be kept deeply impressed 
with this plainest truth of the Gospel, that no ac- 
tual ascension thither is possible unless they are 
first saved from sin. 

It is, too, quite within the scope of our high call- 
ing — we speak now as one of sixty thousand minis- 
ters of our profane land, on whom rests the grave 
responsibility of educating the public conscience in 
the law of God — to deal out intense invectives, now 
and then, against sin in general. There are but 
few pulpit subjects on which more touching things 
may be said. Pathos, description, denunciation, 



268 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

warning and exhortation — all the elements, indeed, 
of effective oratory — may, and ought to be, pressed 
into service by the " mouth-piece of God" when sin, 
" the abominable thing," which he " hates," is the 
topic of the sermon. But we should particularize 
a little now and then. " Glittering generalities," 
like the broad sheet lightning of a summer evening, 
hurt no one ; it is the quick, sharp stroke that kills. 
It is not unauthorized personality, but just such as 
Scripture* enjoins to single out the sin, be it what 
it may, which seems most to prevail among the peo- 
ple, and expose it in all its hideousness. If this be 
not one of the most important functions of the 
Christian ministry, then have we been studying its 
obligations or requirements for more than a score 
of years to no purpose. 

And in attacking these particular sins, ours 
should be a spirit as determined and resolute, and 
our aim as direct, as was the Quaker's, of whom we 
have read. Discovering a thief in his house, he 
took down his grandfather's old fowling-piece, and 
quietly said, " Friend, thee had better get out of the 
way; for I intend to fire this gun right ivhere thee 
stands." The sensitive minister who fears that 
such direct preaching may hurt the sinners of his 
congregation, should cultivate, what we shall term, 
a little elocutionary dexterity, so that he may do 

*Ezek. iii. 18. 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 269 

his duty as effectively as the famous Cretan archer ; 
he saw a vile reptile slowly coiling itself about the 
body of his beloved son ; seizing his bow, and 
quietly adjusting to it an arrow, he raised it to his 
eye, and aimed, and propelled it so directly that it 
pierced the serpent ; loosening its coils, it fell upon 
the ground, and his boy stood up unharmed and 
saved. It is but working towards the complete con- 
summation of the grand end of the Redeemer's mis- 
sion thus to destroy sin, in order to the salvation of 
the sinner. 

How often the pulpit should dwell on the malig- 
nity, tendencies and consequences of this common 
vice, it must be left to the conscience and good 
judgment of ministers themselves to determine. 
There are communities where it is comparatively 
unknown. But even there it would contribute to 
the creation of a deep, strong public sentiment 
against it, if their ministers only occasionally lifted 
up their voices to condemn it. How ministers who 
are invested with the sacred prerogative of vindicat- 
ing tfre glory of God against the wickedness of man, 
can wink at, or completely ignore, the vice, in com- 
munities where it is known largely to prevail, we 
would not here venture to explain. If, as Colton 
says, " opinions, like showers, are generated in high 
places," whence " they invariably descend into low 
ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as the 
rains unto the sea," then should the pulpit, the 



270 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

highest place on earth that man can occupy, con- 
scientiously cultivate and heroically thunder out 
such positive, decisive "opinions" concerning pro- 
fanity as, descending to, or flowing down upon the 
people, shall make their common sentiment towards 
it somewhat, as Mrs. Jameson says, "like a sharp 
knife;" the foolish sw r earer, " who, in rashness or 
defiance," should "seize it by the blade," would but 
" get cut and mangled for his pains." 

It is with no little gratification that we observe, 
in different directions, signs of an awakened sense 
of the enormity of this vice, and of the necessity of 
methods by which its further indulgence may be 
prevented. The New York " Business Men's Noon- 
Day Prayer-Meeting" recently adopted strong reso- 
lutions condemning it, and suggesting means of ar- 
resting the evil. Such action on the part of promi- 
nent business men in the metropolis, whose influ- 
ence is so far-reaching, is worthy of imitation by 
other bodies of citizens in other localities who are 
at all interested as well in the moral as in the ma- 
terial well-being of the communities in which they 
live. We have lately learned, too, of a society in 
Savannah, Ga., organized for the specific purpose of 
preventing common swearing. A solemn pledge is 
taken by the members, on their initiation, that they 
will never use profane language ; and, if we mistake 
not, it is also required of them that they shall try to 
prevent others from doing it. We see nothing to 



HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 271 

condemn , but much to commend, in such an organiza- 
tion. As certain diseases require specific treatment, 
in order to the healthiness of the physical man, so 
certain vices seem to require particular treatment in 
order to the soundness of the moral man. It has 
come to our knowledge, too, that the temperance 
pledge, in some places where interest is still felt in 
the cause it subserves, has been amended so as to 
include a prohibition of profane language. With all 
our heart we " second the amendment." Indeed, 
we heartily "second" any means, not in itself evil, 
and which is at all effective, by which sin may be 
extinguished, believing with John Bunyan, that 

"Hell soon would lose its heat, could sin expire." 



CHAPTER XI. 

AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 

"TTTE would feel that we had failed in duty, if, 
* * having candidly expressed our judgment of 
the inexcusableness, the uselessness, the vulgarity, 
and the sin of swearing, w r e closed this essay without 
appealing to you to desist from it. We take it that, 
having read the preceding pages, you concede that 
the strictures there expressed on this vile habit are 
true. If they deserve any thought at all, you will 
not feel offended if we now directly urge you to re- 
pent of and never again indulge this demoralizing 
sin. 

We appeal to you, then, by His patience and 
long -suffering whose solemn name you have so 
often profaned, to abstain from it. Suppose you 
heard that the name of your father was being used 
disrespectfully by different parties ; that, as men 
walked the streets for one purpose or another, they 
frequently mentioned it very insultingly ; that gangs 
of vile characters, carousing in low bar-rooms, or stroll- 
ing along the piers, or gathering together wherever 
their idle inclinations led them, were bandying it 
from mouth to mouth most contemptuously ; that 
there were many persons who never uttered it ex- 
(272) 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 273 

cept to abuse it, how long could you tolerate such 
an offence ? If you could at all reach them by the 
strong arm of the law, would you not punish them 
in righteous indignation at their wickedness ? Or 
if you found yourself unable thus to put a stop to 
their malignant course, would it not hurt you to the 
quick to know, that for no cause that he has given 
them, yet daily and hourly they were thus injuring 
his good name? If you are not " without natural 
affection," you could not but feel aggrieved that 
others so wantonly abused him. 

But suppose you yourself were heard, time and 
again, ill-using thus your father's name. On dis- 
covering, in a thoughtful moment, the enormity of 
such an unfilial offence, what could you think of 
yourself ? Would you not conclude that if others 
called you a monster, you would deserve the bad 
distinction! Yet it is this very thing which you 
have been doing, and, perhaps, for many years, 
only it is not the name of your earthly, but of " our 
Father which is in heaven" — mine, as well as yours 
— which you have been despising — a fact which 
does not diminish, but aggravates the guilt of your 
sin. Not more distinct and appreciable is the rela- 
tion that attaches you to your children, if you are 
a father, than is the relation He sustains to you as 
your Creator. And as you would certainly deem 
your son worthy of chastisement, if he habitually 
cast odium upon your name, if he mentioned it dis- 
12* 



274 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

respectfully again and again, and thus dishonored 
you — a judgment which would be fully sustained by 
the fearful scripture, "Cursed be he that setteth 
light by his father or his mother : and all the peo- 
ple shall say, Amen"* — so you cannot think it an 
unreasonable alternative, that if you persist in the 
unnatural and maleficent habit of profaning the 
sanctities of His name, your Maker should at length 
visit you for it. 

That thus far in your life, He has not done so, is 
no evidence that He has divested Himself of His jus- 
tice, and that, winking at your sin, He will ulti- 
mately save you, notwithstanding your guilt or of- 
fensive conduct toward Him. True, his sword is 
sheathed — sheathed in the scepter of mercy as its 
scabbard, where it is but resting, not rusting. He 
has not destroyed, but simply delayed its use. Not 
less " a consuming fire" now than in Old Testament 
times, the embers of His wrath are but smouldering 
for a season to burst out more terribly upon His 
enemies when the mighty conflict between good and 
evil which has been carried on for so many centuries 
within the arena of this fallen world — a conflict for 
a prize, the human soul, more valuable than the 
whole material universe — shall have closed its last 
campaign. He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, 
and forever." Now that the eternal state towards 
which the immortal soul is gravitating as inevitably 

* Deut. xxvii. 16. 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 275 

as its immaterial counterpart — the body — tends 
towards its original dust, is more clearly revealed, 
it seems to be less necessary, in His economy of 
grace, that God should display His indignation 
against the profane, by such immediate, temporal 
and terrible tokens as He used in ancient times. 
Nevertheless He is a sure paymaster. If He pays 
not "on sight" what is due to men, yet He is 
an accountant who never fails to enter a credit ^ or 
debit. His books are infallibly correct. If He 
does not balance your account with Him daily or 
weekly, or even monthly or yearly, yet you may 
be sure that when the final settlement is made 
there will be no mistakes — you will receive exactly 
what is due to you. 

For this reason, then, that He has not yet settled 
with you, that He withholds His wrath, that He 
bears with you and forbears to punish you for your 
profanity, we beg you not to indulge any longer this 
provoking sin. Your persistence in this vile habit 
is an abuse of His long-suffering as well as of His 
name. It is not impossible that, in some unguarded 
moment, He should take you at your word ; that, 
daringly and madly imprecating damnation upon 
yourself, He should instantly answer you, by letting 
you slide down into perdition. Many instances, as 
strongly attested as the doubtful might require be- 
fore they would accept them as being true, have 
transpired, in which bold, defiant swearers, thus 



276 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

challenging the Almighty to curse them, have had 
their challenge answered, even before it was fully 
uttered ! Quick as the thunderbolt cleaving the 
gnarled oak and tearing its foliage into shreds, ven- 
geance came, and they departed this life, to walk 
the solemn rounds of the future, with the unfinished 
malediction trembling upon their tongues. We beg 
you, dear friend, to be careful! Do not, oh, do 
not trifle with the Almighty ! 

We appeal to you further, to desist from this 
soul-destroying vice, for your oivn sake! You 
have no more right to injure yourself than to injure 
others. The admonition that St. Paul thundered 
down the corridors of the Philippian prison ; that ar- 
rested and wrenched out of his hand, the frightened 
jailor's sword, by which he expected to become his 
own executioner, " Do thyself no harm!" sounds 
more or less distinctly from every book of the 
Scriptures. Indeed, " the volume of the book" is 
but a " great trumpet" through which the Creator 
is ever sounding to every fallen child of Adam, " Do 
thyself no harm!" There is no vice you commit 
that can be excused by the plea, that it hurts no 
one but yourself. The recklessness that begets in 
you such a feeling is in itself criminal. 

One of the first duties incumbent on you as an 
intelligent, accountable being — a duty w T hich you 
cannot ignore without suffering — is to care for your- 
self. How long could you live, if it were possible 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 277 

to divest yourself of all self-care ? Nature surely 
would soon punish you for such a voluntary renun- 
ciation of her law of self-preservation. If you re- 
fused to eat because it requires some personal effort 
to get food, she would let you starve. If you were 
so utterly careless of your well-being that you re- 
fused to stoop down and dip out of one of her ten 
thousand bubbling springs, she would hardly lift a 
hand to plash the water herself upon your parched 
lips. If she found you in an exposed condition, 
she would not arrest her thunders, and quench her 
lightnings, and restrain the winds, and thus moder- 
ate the driving storm, because you are not disposed 
to seek shelter. Thankful should we be that nature 
acts towards us, not passively, as if she thought it 
were enough, on her part, quietly to respect the 
power we possess of caring for ourselves ; but she 
actually and generously rewards us when we use it, 
by prospering our health, and increasing our sub- 
stance, and thus adding to our enjoyment of this 
present life. There is nothing, then, of the ring 
either of nature, or of common sense, in the spe- 
cious expression which sometimes falls from the lips 
of the profane, when reproved for their swearing — 
an expression to which we cannot attach the dignity 
of an " objection" — " I don't care ; it hurts no one 
but myself." But you do care for yourself, swearer, 
nor could we think you rational if you did not. It 
is as natural for you to do so, as to eat when you 



278 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

are hungry, or drink when you are thirsty, or sleep 
when you are weary. The veriest idiot reveals, in 
one way or another, or to some extent, the existence 
of this inherent instinct, which is no less common, 
indeed, to brute than to human creatures. 

Would that we could deepen in you that sense of 
personality of which it is not possible that you can 
rid yourself. It is a very impressive truth- — one 
that should make you thoughtful of the responsi- 
bilities of your being — that you carry with you an 
individuality that distinguishes you from every other 
creature of God in the universe. Like all other 
human beings in some general respects, yet in cer- 
tain specific features you are distinct, or separate 
from all of them. You are no more exactly like 
any other person than are any two specimens, of 
God's handiwork alike in any department of His 
creation — a statement that becomes startling, in- 
deed, as one vainly attempts to estimate the incon- 
ceivably vast number of human beings who have 
lived and died upon the earth since man's creation, 
and each one of whom, separately from all the rest, 
was as distinctively a person as yourself. 

Nor can you ever lose your personal identity. 
Never can you mingle so intimately with others of 
like nature that, becoming, in a sense, a part of 
them, you shall, in time, extinguish your own self. 
Close and familiar as may be your fellowships with 
others, yet you can never merge in them so far that 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROF AXE. 279 

your own individuality will ultimately disappear. 
You are now, and always will be, counted as one of 
the vast aggregate of intelligent human creatures, 
whose destiny in the future, is determined by their 
conduct in the present world. In the midst of the 
immense throng that shall some day surge to and 
fro before the great white throne — so mighty the 
host that the mind almost reels as it attempts to 
compass it — you will stand as distinctively a person 
as He who intends to sit upon the throne of thrones. 
And ever and forever amid the countless myriads of 
the spirit-world, whirling through immeasurable 
space, you will remain, like them, it is true, in some 
general features, yet in certain others, distinct, 
separate from all. 

We entreat you, then, swearer, to respect your 
self. It is said that there are mirrors which, if you 
stand before them within a given distance, will re- 
produce your entire form or figure, as standing be- 
tween the glass and your real person. A strange 
feeling, mostly of surprise and not unmingled with 
fear, seizes the curious one who ventures thus to 
scrutinize himself. What would be your feeling if, 
when uttering some vulgar, blasphemous expression, 
you could thus for a moment, see and hear yourself? 
Would you not feel ashamed of him? 

We appeal to you again to quit this wicked habit 
for others' sake! How many may have learned 
the dialect of profanity from your lips? True, not 



280 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

in a formal manner, as you would teach a child the 
alphabet, have you taught them how to blaspheme 
their Maker. Doubtless you would denounce a man 
as being the very impersonation of evil who dared 
thus to instruct others in the literature of sin. As- 
suming that you have never done this, that you are 
not so utterly thoughtless of the tendencies, tyranny, 
and consequences of crime, or senseless of moral 
obligation, that you could sit down, and by one 
formal verbal lesson after another, calmly and pa- 
tiently teach others how to bring upon themselves 
shame and disgrace in this, and eternal wretchedness 
in the future life ; yet it is, nevertheless, a startling 
fact, that you are doing this very thing by a far 
shorter and more effective means, the tuition of ex- 
ample. May there not be, within the circle of your 
acquaintanceship, more than one whose bad words 
in conversation are but repetitions of your ex- 
pressions? May there not be children who are 
practicing the phraseology of crime as it rolls off 
your tongue ? How shocking, too, the thought that 
some of the most beloved of the little ones thus in- 
structed may be your own — bone of your bone, and 
flesh of your flesh ! They may have heard you 
swear so often that they have come, not only to ex- 
pect it of you even on the least occasions, but even 
to rival your profanity. If it is a relief to you to 
nurse the thought that they swear merely by rote, 
or are too young to know what they are doing, and, 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 281 

hence, that they remain as innocent as irresponsible 
parrots which have been taught guilty words, yet, 
surely, it cannot make you comfortable to be told 
that till they reach an age when they can realize 
the enormity of such a sin, every oath they utter is 
chargeable on your account! And ever afterwards, 
if they pursue the career of wickedness of which, in 
ten thousand instances, profanity proves itself to 
have been the initial step, it will contribute nothing 
to your satisfaction to remember that it was you — 
their own father — who gave them a start hellward. 
The assertion is not extravagant, that no au- 
thority attaching to the relation which a pro- 
fane father sustains to such unpromising children, 
can prevent them from accepting and acting upon the 
tuition of his bad example. It is simply impossible 
that any one can restrain or annihilate the influence 
that he is exerting upon other persons. If it be 
good, he will not wish to do this ; he will be glad 
that they are being improved by contact with him. 
If it be evil, he has not the power to hinder or limit 
its operations. Rising wrathfully from his chair 
and making for his son — a little fellow who was just 
beginning to speak plainly — said a swearing father 
roughly, "I'll whip you till you can't stand!" 
What had the child done to deserve such severe 
chastisement ? Like the youngling listening to and 
mimicking the parent-bird till it has perfectly learned 
every rounded note, he had just uttered several full, 



282 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

round oaths, which the angry father had often blurted 
out in his hearing. He had re-produced them with 
all the startling distinctness and emphasis of his 
father's manner. So shocked was the father at this 
repetition of his blasphemy by his own prattling 
boy, that he madly exclaimed, " I'll whip you till 
you can't stand !" But a thunderbolt could hardly 
have startled him more than the quiet response of 
the little fellow : looking the irate father in the eve, 
he said, " Father , if you whip me, who will whip 
youf 

Oh, swearer, what infinite harm you are doing, 
not yourself alone but others as well, and especially 
the young, by your example of profanity! You 
are weakening their sense of reverence for the Su- 
preme Being — a feeling which, in order to their 
highest good, it is absolutely necessary for them to 
cultivate. Though they shall never be able to ex- 
tinguish it entirely, yet you are encouraging them 
to let their idea or thought of God become so vague 
and indistinct — so inoperative, indeed — as to lose 
whatever moral force it may have had hitherto in 
restraining them from vicious and prompting them 
to virtuous habits. Every flippant violation of the 
sanctities of the divine name is to them a denial, in 
effect, on your part of all the utterances of Scripture 
about " the fear of the Lord," that it "is the begin- 
ning of wisdom," that it " is to hate evil," that it 
" prolongeth days," or " tendeth to life," and so on. 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 283 

By enfeebling, thus, if not destroying, at once their 
feeling of reverence for the Deity and their respect 
for His "Word, you are making it easy for them to 
begin and pursue a life of infamy and shame. The 
lengths of wickedness to which they may be carried 

O J.J 

by the momentum which you thus give the evil in- 
clinations of their fallen nature — inclinations which 
need but little encouragement to involve the sinner 
in the deepest guilt — may yet appal even yourself, 
should you live long enough to read the history of 
their manhood or womanhood. 

We beg you, therefore, swearer, to shake off this 
soul-destroying vice. Shake it off as you would 
shake from you a poisonous viper, trying to fasten 
its fangs upon your person. If you insist that we 
shall not cultivate and express quite so much inter- 
est in yourself, that you are quite competent enough 
to take care of yourself without the gratuitous 
counsels of officious friends, and that when you 
begin to see that the vice is really injuring yourself 
you will quit it, then, for the sake of others who are 
learning the horrid dialect of crime from your lips, 
and of whose proficiency in the arts of blasphemy 
you yourself may yet become ashamed, we beg you 
not to swear. Do not teach them such words as, if 
not repented of, the recording angel will re-produce 
as testimony sufficient, not only to debar them forever 
from the glory and bliss of heaven but, as well, to 
imprison them forever in that fearful place the very 



284 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

name of which — "hell" — is enough to create a 
shudder. 

But again we appeal to you to stop this vile habit, 
because it is an abuse of the divine gift of speech. 
In endowing man with reason, his Maker conferred 
on him a faculty which would have occasioned him 
more wretchedness than happiness, more pain than 
pleasure, if He had not coupled it with the power 
of speech. In this event human ingenuity would 
probably have originated systems of signs, some- 
what like such as are used by deaf-mutes, complete 
enough to subserve the ordinary purposes of human 
fellowships and associations. But, to say nothing 
of its awkardness, the great inconvenience of such 
an artificial medium of inter-communication would 
have been felt in a thousand ways. 

Besides this, what an immense amount of happi- 
ness man would not have known, if he had been 
originally created with all the wonderful endow- 
ments which justly entitle him to be called the 
prince of creation, excepting the gift of speech. 
Indispensable, as the conditions under which we 
live prove it to be, and so largely contributive to our 
happiness as it is, yet there are frequent instances 
in which it seems to be inadequate to the purpose 
of communicating all the ideas and impressions of 
the thinking soul. To many persons who have not 
cultivated the power of language so as to be able to 
express their thoughts freely and clearly, the very 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 285 

effort to do this often becomes vexatious — a fault 
which, of course, is to be charged more on their 
own neglect of the means of education than on the 
gift itself of speech. There are others, however 
— even men of cultivated minds — who often find it 
a difficult thing to clothe the thought that struggles 
within them for utterance with suitable spoken or 
written words. Their lexicons are large, but incom- 
plete ; the words which might so accurately repro- 
duce their burning impressions and ideas as to warm 
other appreciative minds into a glow of admiration, 
have not yet been invented, and spelled out in their 
columns. In respect, too, of true religious feeling, 
there are experiences which, like St. Paul's,* are 
not speakable. There is a depth of devotional sen- 
timent at times in the true child of God that has no 
soundings. Only the eye that compasses the uni- 
verse can fathom it. The silence of the soul, in 
this condition, is at once its only and most befitting 
expression— words would but disturb without re- 
vealing such depths. The calm, quiet enthusiasm 
of a Christian mind, lost in meditation on the num- 
ber, magnitude, and variety of the divine blessings, 
is an unspeakable experience. Unused to the con- 
ventional phraseology of mere wordy professors — 
shrinking, indeed, from the mere cant of such devo- 
tion as is demonstrative only in the ratio of its ig- 
norance — such a one if asked to express orally, or 

2 Cor. xii. 2-4. 



28 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

audibly, what he feels, might fitly respond, in ef- 
fect — 

"Fountain of mercy! whose all-pervading eye 
Can look within and read what passes there, 
Accept my thoughts for thanks; I have no words. 
My soul, o'erfraught with gratitude, rejects 
The aid of langauge. Lord! behold my heart!" 

The gift of speech, then, dear reader, is a study 
— a profound study. If we could but offer you such 
hints and suggestions touching it as would prompt 
you to inquire into its value, more at length than 
the limited space of this page allows us to do, we 
have no doubt but that you would not proceed far 
in your inquiries, before you would concede with us, 
even though the confession convicted yourself of 
guiltiness, that of all the abuses to which men sub- 
mit their inestimable talent of speech, there is none 
at once so irrational and ungrateful as swearing. 
The single consideration that they are distinguish- 
able from each other as being wise or foolish, not 
much less markedly than from the brute creation, by 
the use of the tongue, should be sufficient to guard 
them against the indulgence of this vice, unless they 
prefer to be known, not as being wise, but foolish. 

It is an affliction that must be exquisitely painful, 
to be deprived of one's power of speech, and not, at 
the same time, of rationality. To a good man it 
must be worse than death. As he lay upon his 
couch gradually growing weaker, through physical 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 287 

inability to take nourishment, occasioned by paraly- 
sis of the tongue and throat, a well-to-do friend of 
the writer, having just strength enough left to do so, 
wrote, in substance, on a slate that was put under 
his hand, "I'm starving to death in the midst of 
plenty — I'm so hungry ; but it will soon be over — it 
will soon be over!" Nor can we ever forget a ven- 
erable German woman — a Christian grandmother, 
w T ho, having been stricken with paralysis, had lost 
the use of her right arm and of the power of speech. 
Day after day, as she sat in her chair, or feebly at- 
tempted to move about, in order to a little relief, 
strange as it seemed, there were two words only 
which, in the efforts she made to communicate with 
others, she could distinctly utter. Time and again 
as we talked to her in a Christian tone, and tried to 
understand the responses of her interesting, intelli- 
gent countenance, it was touching in the extreme, to 
see her lift her left hand, and hear her speak, at the 
same moment, the only two words that were left her, 
u ach Gott! ach Groti!" This only phrase that 
she could articulate — "Oh, God! Oh, God!" — ex- 
pressed a volume of meaning. In it were summed 
up all the hopes and aspirations of her long previous 
Christian life, and all the longings of her now help- 
less old age, for rest in Him whose name she had 
ever found to be " a strong tower; the righteous 
runneth into it, and is safe."* 

* Prov. xviii. 10. 



288 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

We pray, swearer, that your tongue may never 
be withered by this fell disease, paralysis ! Stricken 
dumb suddenly and unexpectedly, yours certainly 
could not be such a hopeful religious experience as 
is above described. The oaths and blasphemies of 
your previous life, recurring to your memory in 
fearful array, it would constitute not the least part 
of the affliction to know that you had lost the ines- 
timable power or incalculable privilege of speech, so 
far as not to be able to stammer out even the peni- 
tent's prayer, u God be merciful to me, the sinner!" 

Bat we appeal to you again to repent of this ag- 
gravating sin, on the ground of your accountability 
to your Maker. The records of your past life are 
imperishable. Only time passes away; what is 
said and done by you and me remains — much of it 
in our own, and all in our Maker's remembrance. 
Nothing that one thinks, or says, or does, within the 
circle of his present life, whether its radius extends 
to the shore-line of a continent or but a few rods 
from an obscure door-sill, can be absolutely forgot- 
ten — so sunk in the deep of oblivion that it shall 
never come to the surface. A fact this — a naked, 
unadorned fact, w T hich many witnesses, persons who 
have been almost drowned but have been resusci- 
tated, could corroborate, if not demonstrate. With 
nervous agitation, blanched cheek and quivering 
lips, they have declared that at a certain moment in 
their experience of drowning — at the instant, per- 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 289 

haps, when it was to be determined whether they 
should slip off into eternity or remain a little longer 
in time — everything they ever said or did, appeared 
to them with startling distinctness — things, indeed, 
they had not remembered since they occurred years 
previously. How forcibly this phenomenon sug- 
gests the minute review, in which shall pass before 
him, when he comes to stand at the bar of the last 
judgment, all the acts of one's present life ! 

Certain recent discoveries of science, if they do 
not illustrate, yet make more credible, the revealed 
truth of our human accountability. If man's in- 
genuity can devise an instrument by which his 
words may be heard by invisible listeners many tor- 
tuous leagues distant, is it a mere figment of theo- 
logy that his mighty Maker, invisible yet so near 
him always that he can never leave His presence, is 
always, too, one of his most interested hearers ? If, 
furthermore, he can invent a machine that shall 
record his words — indeed, even his merest whispers 
— record accurately the very inflections, emphases, 
and accents with which they are uttered, so that at 
any moment in future years, if he curiously put his 
finger on some simple spring, those same loud or whis- 
pered words, whether of wit or wisdom, of laughter or 
sorrow, of anger or love, of prayer or profanity, shall 
be distinctly re-produced to his startled ears ; — if 
man can do this by the genius, almost creative, with 
which his Maker has endowed him, is it incredible 
13 



290 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

that his Maker Himself has means, though He has 
not seen fit to reveal them to us, by which He shall 
re-produce to our memory, on the great last day of 
judgment, all the acts as well as words which com- 
pose the history of our present life ? Now that 
man himself by the merest mechanical means can 
perpetuate, not simply the memory of but the very 
words themselves which he utters, and not only the 
bare, naked words but, in the suspended vocal tones 
accompanying them, the very spirit or motive that 
actuated them, to doubt that a divine record can be, 
and is being made of what he says and does, is to 
shut one's eyes against a truth which, in its further 
inquiries into the arcana of the physical world, 
science itself may yet help us to believe without any 
misgiving whatever. Christ's solemn protest is not 
unphilosophical, " But I say unto you, that every 
idle word that men shall speak, they shall give ac- 
count thereof in the day of judgment."* 

"What wilt thou say when He shall punish 
thee,"f swearer, for all the oaths and blasphemies 
of thy whole life-time ? If you should die impeni- 
tently, which w T e pray Grod may not be your expe- 
rience, how exquisite the pangs of conscience that 
shall be occasioned by the recurrence to your 
thought, in eternity, of all the curses, imprecations, 
and indecent language to which you gave utterance 

*Matt. xii. 36. 
I Jer. xiii. 21. 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 291 

while passing through forty, or sixty, or, it may be, 
seventy years of infinitely-precious life here on 
earth! Where "hell" is and what it is, we do not 
know. We only know that it is, somewhere beyond 
the verge of time, and, in general terms, that it is 
misery and wretchedness wherever the lost spirit 
shall realize it. And let that "hell" be where it 
may, there will be no need there of material fire to 
torture the lost soul. Carrying with it into eternity 
all its power of thought and memory, it shall find 
within itself "hell" enough to punish itself for the 
guilt it contracted prior to its advent thither. What 
John Randolph is said to have felt in his last sick- 
ness would constitute a sufficient "hell" for the 
rational, thinking soul to endure; and certainly so, 
if it is to last forever ! It is related that he said to 
his physician, "Remorse, Remorse, Remorse!! 
Let me see the word ! Show it to me in a diction- 
ary!" As none was conveniently near, he said to 
the doctor: "Write it, then — write it on both sides 
of a card, and underline it!" Holding it up before 
him, and gazing upon it intently, he bitterly ex- 
claimed: "Remorse! — you don't know what it 
means! you don't know what it means!" God for- 
bid, swearer, that you should ever realize " what it 
means." 

But we still further entreat you to quit this fear- 
ful vice because of its hardening effect upon the 
conscience or moral sense. Have you ever noticed 



292 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

that swearers, as a rule, are not church-goers ? We 
do not mean to imply that every church-goer is not 
a swearer. On several former pages we have can- 
didly admitted, and lamented, and called the atten- 
tion of the reader to the sad fact that there are even 
avowed Christians w T ho indulge this low vice. But 
we merely state what has often been observed as 
well by others as by ourself, that swearers, as a 
class, are not in the habit of attending church. 
The hallowed place where He is worshipped from 
time to time, has no attractions for him who, having 
cast off all fear of God, daily profanes His holy 
name. 

Again: have you ever observed that swearers do 
not pray ? And yet they do pray ; that is, they 
send heavenward, time and again, fearfully-worded 
petitions, that the Almighty should — not bless them- 
selves and others, as tenderly and graciously as 
Pope's touching stanza suggests — 

' 'Teach me to feel another's woe, 
To hide the faults I see ; 
That mercy I to others show 
That mercy show to me," — 

but curse — actually curse either themselves or 
others. Aye, they do pray; but such prayers! 
Savoring so largely as they do, of the region 
poetically described in Scripture as being overcast 
with "the blackness of darkness forever," they 
may, therefore, appropriately be termed infernal. 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 293 

But let us state the question in another form ; — 
have you ever seen a swearer down upon his knees, 
at his bed-side or in his own family circle, and heard 
him softly whisper, " Our Father who art in heaven, 
Hallmved be thy Name" and so on, till he ended 
the interesting service of devotion w r ith the doxology , 
" For thine is * * * * * * the glory, forever. 
Amen ? " Have you ever seen the blatant swearer 
in the midst of a congregation of worshippers, rever- 
ently waiting to be dismissed, and, the while, hum- 
bly bending as if in grateful recognition and 
acknowledgment of the precious truth voiced in the 
benediction — " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
be with you all. Amen?" In response to such 
queries perhaps we should not here w T rite "never." 
Now and then there may be an exception ; occasion- 
ally the bold blasphemer may be seen in church ; but 
the rule is, that he neither goes to church, nor 
prays, nor habitually observes any other distinctively 
religious duty. 

The indifference to religion on the part of men in 
general, or their evident dislike of religious duty, is 
explained by St. Paul on the broad ground that 
" the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is 
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can 
be."* While we assent to this general statement 
without a doubt of its truthfulness, yet it is, too, 

* Rom. viii. 7. 



294 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

our honest conviction — a conviction forced upon us, 
indeed, by long observation of its sad effects upon 
the confirmed swearer — that of all the particular 
sins or immoralities to which man thoughtlessly gives 
himself, there is none that tends sooner and more 
effectually to destroy whatever religious sentiment 
may inhere in his human nature, to sear his con- 
science as with a hot iron, and to bring the soul into 
the fearful condition which the Apostle so graphi- 
cally pictures in but two w T ords — u past feeling" — 
than the sin of profanity. 

Do you remember, swearer, your first oath? 
How ashamed you w r ere of yourself! How it 
startled you to hear the sound of your own profan- 
ity ! You looked around, perhaps, to see if any 
other than the party at whom you swore had heard 
you. A moment after, and you resolved, perhaps, 
that you would never do it again. And you kept 
your engagement w T ith yourself for a considerable 
period, it may be. But you broke it, on another 
occasion ; and then a third time you swore, and a 
fourth, and thenceforth every repetition of the sin 
made it less and less enormous to your conscience. 

It is in just this way that bad habits are formed. 
Everything we do repeatedly reacts in its effect upon 
the mind ; it strengthens the disposition to do that 
thing, whatever it may be, till it acquires at last the 
force and energy of what is sometimes called a 
" second nature." A man doing wrong once is 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 295 

hereby prepared to clo it twice, and much easier can 
he do it the third time. In direct opposition to his 
conviction of their guiltiness, and with hut little 
temptation to encourage him, by simply repeating 
his indulgences he may become so addicted, not to 
one only, but, indeed, to all human vices, that his 
life shall become an almost hopeless state of serf- 
dom to many masters — a serfdom the more deplor- 
able in that it is voluntary. Then it is that he 
fears no more the alarms of conscience. His con- 
dition is somewhat like that of the smith's dog lying 
near his anvil ; at first the fiery sparks frightened 
him away, but coaxed from time to time to remain, 
at length he not only unconcernedly faces the fire, 
but he even lies down under the anvil and sleeps, 
in spite of ringing blows sounding in his ears, and 
rush of hissing sparks over and about him in every 
direction. As such an utterly inanimate spiritual 
state is an earnest, as sad as it is certain, of a still 
worse future state of the soul, we plead with you, 
swearer ! to guard against it by having nothing to 
do with the sin that most directly and certainly con- 
tributes to it. 

But last of all, though it ought to have been, per- 
haps, our first plea, we appeal to you to quit it, be- 
cause God forbids it. None of His commands is 
unnecessary or superfluous. He does not thrust 
law T s and obligations upon us from the mere love of 
exercising authority. He never forbids this, or 



296 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY, 

commands that, simply because He is God and we — 
His helpless creatures — are unable successfully to 
argue down, or otherwise set aside His claims upon 
our obedience. He is not a tyrant. He is not an 
autocrat, using infinite means to command obedience 
to an arbitrary will, or to subserve an infinitely 
selfish purpose. No; no — a thousand times no! 
He is a Father — " Our Father" — yours and mine. 
Repeating the common-place which you have heard 
so often, that He loves you, and, too, with an in- 
finite love, w T e wish that we had the space here so 
to re-produce the oft-reiterated evidences of that 
precious truth, that they could not fail of deeply 
impressing you. He loves you, swearer ; therefore 
He forbids you to sin against Him. He could an- 
swer your imprecations instantly ; but He loves you, 
swearer, and, hence, He withholds His wrath. He 
will not " damn" you, if you yourself will but con 
sent to be saved. 

Independent of all other considerations, it should 
be reason enough for you to quit the habit of swear- 
ing that, "Thus saith the Lord." He is the 
Sovereign, and we are the subjects. He is the 
Father, and we are the children. The most willing 
and unhesitating obedience, therefore, is due to Him 
whom we have been exalting on every page of this 
book, and who from His throne of thrones and in 
every age of his history has been thundering in the 
ears of man this solemn commandment: "THOU 



AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 297 

SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE 
LORD THY GOD IN VAIN ; FOR THE LORD 
WILL NOT HOLD HIM GUILTLESS THAT 
TAKETII HIS NAME IN VAIN." 

And now reader, let us part company. But not 
without His blessing whose name we have magni- 
fied, as demanding our deepest veneration. Our 
labor is rewarded and our end attained, if, by read- 
ing this discussion of the sin of profanity, you have 
become as thoroughly convinced of its malignity as 
is the writer, and are equally moved with him to 
u give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name." 
Our reverence for Him should be as deep as was 
Isaiah's; and for the same reason, " Lord, thou 
art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy 
name."* 

"0 magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt 
his name together."! 

" To Jehovah, God of might, 
Everlasting, infinite, 
Dwelling in His boundless heaven, 
Be eternal glory given ! 
His the power, the love, the light, 
His the day and His the night, 
His tne happy bine on high, 
Earth's green round of spring and joy. 

* Isa. xxv . i. 
f Psa. xxxiv, 3. 
18* 



298 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 

" Let us, then, our honor bring 
To this mighty Lord and King, 
Let a new and ceaseless song 
Break from every heart and tongue. 
Praise Him as the God of might, 
Praise Him as the Lord of light. 
To His name our song we raise, 
Father, Son, and Spirit praise."* 

* Horatius Bonar. 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



PAGE 

Accessory to others' sins, who is 248 

Accomplishment, appropriateness of speech an . . . 89 
" gentility, not a mere exterior ... 88 

" profanity, not a female 99 

Accountability, human 288 

" " science corroborating the. . .289 

"Ach Gott!" 287 

Adam versus Eve 165 

Addresses of a swearer, young women encouraging the 258 
Administering "judicial oaths," reprehensible man- 
ner of 226 

Advice, George Herbert's quaint 86 

" Francis Quarle's quaint . ... 129 

Aged swearer, the 83 

"Amm" 239 

American Indians guiltless of profanity 58 

Ambition of " Festus" the highest 188 

Amusement, profanity not an 246 

Anger, the folly of. 149 

" the issues of ungoverned 150 

" self-consuming 151 

" swearing in 147 

Angels, the worship of. 176 

Anglo-Saxon tongue, profanity not peculiar to the . . 51 
Answered imprecations, illustrations of supposed. . . 65 

Anti-swearing society 270 

Archer, the Cretan . 269 

Art, the, of swearing among various peoples 52 

Artists, the, essays on Guilt and Innocence 72 

( 299 ) 



300 INDEX OF TOPICS. 

PAGE 

Artists, a trio of 89 

Ashamed of themselves, what Christians should be . 246 

Asleep, conscience 295 

Atheism, Jeremy Taylor on 198 

u Robespierre on 215 

" Coleridge on 199 

" Dr. Young on 170 

" and infidelity not the legitimate issue of rea- 
son and knowledge 210 

Atheists, the non-belief of, astonishing 199 

" the most profane of the profane 198 

" and infidels, why men are 213 

Authority should be used to interdict profanity. . . .256 

Badge, the, of gentility 88 

" Beast," the blasphemous, in Rev. xiii, 5-6 238 

Beelzebub and his imps . . . 83 

Belief, accountability for our 205 

Belies himself, how the swearer often , . . 147 

Blasphemer, the, in Lev. xxiv, 10-23 178 

Blasphemous, a, expression 208 

Blunderingly, doing good 246 

"Bottle, pot, and glass" 121 

Bowring, Sir John, on The Infinite 102 

Boyle's, Hon. Robert, reverence for the name of God . 177 

Breakfast-table, scene at a 47 

Brute, the cursed « . . . . 66 

Bunyan, John, rebuked for his profanity 250 

Business man's, a, short argument 130 

"Business Men's Noon-Day Prayer-meeting " . . . . 270 

"By" anything, swearing 232 

" profanity without the particle 233 

"Cannot quit it " 146 

Cannibalism 39 

Capital offence, blasphemy once a 179 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 301 

FAGE 

Caste, social, no criterion of gentility 90 

Challenge, a . . 138 

Cheap work , 82 

Child's, a, reproof 282 

Children, profanity of 36 

Christian Fathers, the, on swearing 226 

Church members, irreligious , 21 

Class distinctions, the English tenacious of 94 

Classes, swearing more or less common to all . . . . 20 

Clerical swearers 21 

Coachman, the clergyman and the 253 

Comment, a caustic, by the secular press 210 

Commercial use, swearing of no 75 

Confession, a humiliating 57 

Congressional swearers 29 

Conscience, a seared . 295 

Conqueror, a, conquered 218 

Constitutional vice, swearing not a 142 

Conversation, swearing not important to 109 

" minor faults of 135 

" a key to character 105 

Conversationalist, a novel 117 

Correct the vice, the duty of Christians to 245 

Courage, true 115 

" the profane lack in 113 

Cowper on profanity 50 

Cursing, mutual 66 

Custom, an Indian 38 

Cuyler, Dr. Theo., on swearing 85 

Crime, the first 149 

" trifling with 148 

" the prevalence of, not wonderful .213 

" the New York Evening Post on the cause of . . 214 

Criminal, how a "gentleman" becomes a 99 

si practice, a 38 



302 INDEX OF TOPICS. 

PAGt? 

Delicacy of feeling, false 249 

" " " rebuked by a king 250 

Devils answered, the prayer of 68 

Dilemma, a 127 

Discipline, the, of a ship 259 

" church 23 

Dignity of manhood not improved by profanity ... 73 

Disfigures himself, how the swearer 70 

Dislike of religion, St. Paul's explanation of men's . 211 

" Does it pay?" 75 

" Do thyself no harm" 276 

Dolls, wooden 155 

Drought, graphic description of a 240 

Drunkenness often an inherited vice 143 

Dwight, Rev. Tim., on profaneness 83 

Early impressions inextinguishable 37 

Edward's, Rev. Jon., opinion of profaneness 81 

Effects, enervating " " " 112 

Eloquence deplored, results of infidel 207 

Emperor, an, rebuked 55 

Empty head, swearing proof of an 74 

Encouraging sin dangerous 132 

English profanity 44 

Estimate of criminality, inconsistent 26 

Example, the tuition of 280 

Excuse for swearing, no reasonable . • 138 

Expedients, prudent, to arrest attention 254 

Expression, an eloquent Indian 59 

Fact deplored, a sad 208 

" stated, a remarkable 171 

Fate of nations, Southey on the 244 

"Father," the most endearing name of God .... 183 

" God's human name 185 

" the name most used by Christ 184 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 303 

PAGE 

Father's name, the swearer ill-using his 272 

Faults, minor, of conversation 135 

Fealty to the Devil, a tribute of 82 

Festus, moral cowardice illustrated in 116 

Fire, swearing the smoke of a 152 

Folly, the swearer admitting his 153 

Foreman, or "boss," swearing of no use to a . . . . 77 

Forms, modified, of swearing 228 

Freedman, the unlettered 167 

Galen's conversion from atheism to theism 62 

Gentility within 90 

Gentleman, no, swears 87 

" the name of, easily arrogated 105 

Germans, the, not a profane people 54 

God ! 191 

the idea of, inherent in man . . 204 

high above terrestrial things 159 

a great deep to our thought 197 

how little we know of 173 

an object none can safely exclude from thought . 197 

to the atheist no object at all 200 

what is 194 

the attitude of learned atheism towards .... 201 

cannot be injured by man 159 

as "Our Father," "hurt" by man's wickedness . 162 

His wonderful patience 160 

Jean Ingelow on His longanimity 160 

His goodness, His glory 96 

has not divested Himself of His justice .... 274 

not always mocked with impunity 240 

not a tyrant 296 

a sure paymaster 275 

forbids the sin of profanity 296 

His providential relation to the peoples of the 
earth 242 



304 INDEX OF TOPICS. 

PAGE 

God ! His resources infinite 243 

" a short but awful monosyllable 1G0 

" Sir John Bow ring on the word 173 

God is! 172 

" " man cannot be silenced, touching the truth 

that 204 

" " how we infer what 172 

Goodness, the glory of 96 

Guilt of sin not lessened by its repetition 139 

Habit, the plea of 139 

" " power of 141 

" acting against a fixed 89 

" bad, how formed 295 

" Hallowed be thy name" 176 

Heard, where swearing may be 18 

" Heathen Chinee" theatricals 48 

Hero, who is the 115 

High life, profanity in 27 

Hindoo devotion 39 

"Home, sweet home" closed against the swearer . . 256 

" ' e " polluted by " " . . 257 

Honest man, the habitual swearer not an . . . . . . 129 

Hopkins, Bishop, a fine thought from 194 

Horse, a knowing 250 

Howard, John, an incident of 131 

"I don't care ; it hurts no one but myself" 277 

" I don't mean anything by it " . . • 153 

Inanimate things, cursing 66 

Independence, moral, a fiction 187 

Indian practice, an 38 

" American, not naturally disposed to swear . . 58 

India, not a profane country 57 

" In fun," or " in earnest " • . . 68 

" Innocent " sin, there is no 162 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 305 

PAGE 

Inoperative laws on common swearing 262 

"Instantaneous conversion" in the court-room . . . 265 

Instinctively, swearing 148 

Intemperance of speech, the Word forbids . .... .233 

Intent, divesting one's self of guilty 157 

Inveterate vice, a slave driver 141 

Idea, the, of God should ever be preserved ..... 216 
u " difficult to keep uppermost .... 216 

" " how to revivify 217 

"I'll whip you till you can't stand" 281 

James, St., text on swearing 225 

" Jehovah," the true pronunciation of the title . . .181 
1 ' the ancient Jews' veneration of the name. 1 77 

Judah, mourning 240 

Judges, profane • • 77 

" Judicial oaths " forbidden 224 

Key, a, to character 105 

King, a, rebuked by a soldier 249 

Knowledge of God, our, very little 173 

Lady, no, swears 99 

" Webster's definition of a 100 

Latimer, incident of the martyr 126 

Law-administrators, the duty of 266 

Lawyer, swearing of no use to a 77 

Legislative halls, offensive words in 32 

Lie, a man who swears will 128 

Little sins, the unlawfulness and destructiveness of . 163 

London language 46 

Lost, nothing, by not swearing * . 80 

Lord Mayor, the wit and the 89 

" Lucifer " laughing at the profane 116 

Malevolence, exquisite 69 



306 INDEX OF TOPICS. 

PAGE 

"Man! what is" 62 

" the most perfect 97 

" Socrates on 62 

" Erasmus on 62 

" Pascal on 63 

" Young on 62 

" of integrity, the swearer not a 30 

Manliness, Shelley on 33 

Manner, Christ's, of prohibiting swearing 223 

Maryland's revival of moral sense 262 

Maxim, a legal 157 

" a Jewish 233 

" a false 80 

Mean thing, the true man will clo 73 

Merchant, swearing of no use to a 76 

" a wise, of Edinburgh 259 

Merit intrinsic versus merit extrinsic 94 

Military profession, profanity in the 114 

Mohammedan, the devout ; 171 

Moral deformity the most lamentable of self-injuries . 70 

" excellence the true criterion of rank 98 

" inability 88 

" integrity, purity of speech a sign of. 31 

" monsters 38 

" worth, the superiority of 98 

Motivity, pretending to no 155 

Mysteries, the mystery of 172 

Name, the, of G-od, Bailey on 188 

" " how it affected Alexander the 
Great 218 

Name, the, of God, how it affected a poor freedman . 167 
" " " " a devout negro . 168 

" " let it alone ! 175 

" " only His enemies abuse ..... 239 
" of infinite moment to us 186 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 307 

PAGE 

Name, the of God, mention it feverently 218 

" " what it expresses to us 181 

" " " the scripture-writers say of . 188 

Names, soft, for swearing 24 

National characteristic, swearing a 17 

Necessity versus expediency 246 

New Testament, the, law of profanity 223 

Nobleman, who is the 74 

North American Review, the, on swearing 74 

Nothing need prove its right to be 199 

Oath, the fearful import of an 68 

" Offence, first" 140 

Office, immorality a disqualification for 30 

Oneida Indian's, an, gratitude 61 

One's self, caring for 277 

" Opinions, " Colton on , . . 269 

Oriental couplet, an 95 

Ornamental use, swearing of no 70 

"Our Father" 161 

Parlor theatricals 163 

Parrot's swearing 74 

Particeps criminis 248 

1 ' Perfect gentlemen, ' ' have to become 95 

Perjury in the present age 264 

Perpetuity, a nation's best guarantee of 17 

Personality, the sense of 278 

Petition, a daring 96 

Philosopher, the puzzled 194 

Phraseology, foolish 230 

" a grave objection to 232 

Physician, swearing of no use to a 76 

Plato knew of God, what 195 

Poem, a fine, commended 189 

Polish to conversation, swearing gives no . . . . . .119 



308 INDEX OF TOPICS. 

PAGE 

Political personages, admiration of 93 

Polyglot coachman, tlie 53 

Practical use, swearing of no 64 

Prayer, what is , 182 

" , infernal 293 

Precept, an old 245 

Print, profanity in 124 

" Profane, " origin of the word 198 

Profanity never helps anything 80 

" , pulpit 181 

Pulpit should do towards the extinction of the vice, 

what the 267 

Purity of speech a true exponent of refinement . . .104 

Quaker's aim, the 268 

Question, a practical 64 

Rajah's, a Hindoo, opinion of the English 48 

Kecipe for a gentleman, St. Paul's 97 

Remorse is " hell " ' 291 

Repentance magnifying guilt 165 

Revelation of God, a full, unbearable 196 

Ridicule no test of truth 80 

Shadow, a dark 211 

Shamelessness, the, of the swearer .40 

Ship-owner, the, and the pious sailor 251 

Shop, the, who should dictate the rules of 260 

Signs of an awakened sense of the crime of swearing. 270 

Sinai, Mt., God's voice from 220 

Singular, a, thing touching the name of "God " . . . 171 

Sin, the dangerous siege of 141 

" the danger of encouraging 133 

" how, troubles us 174 

" repentance offers no excuse for 164 

" the, of not rebuking 248 

Sinners, some, to be pitied more than others 142 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 309 

PAGE 

Slave, tlie pious 168 

Society endangered, the well-being of. 207 

Soldier, the demented 145 

Solomon on the foolish swearer 238 

Speech, the divine gift of 284 

" should be, what our daily 236 

" a great affliction to be deprived of 287 

" a study 286 

Sprig, a, of gentility rebuked 107 

Starving to death 287 

Steal, a man who swears will 130 

Stranger, a, from another planet 208 

Stultifying himself, the swearer 158 

Suicide, constructive 152 

Sumner, Senator, on Lord Brougham's profanity ... 47 

Sunday School Times, the, on profanity 74 

Supposition, a startling 65 

Swearing, no sin more inexcusable than .166 

" tends to harden conscience more than other 294 

Swearer, the, has no right to injure himself 276 

" the, should quit his vice for others' sake . . 279 

" his own children often rival him 280 

" his prayers 293 

" his first oath • 294 

Tableau, a Persian 51 

Talker, the good, how, regards an oath 118 

Temperance pledges, amended 271 

Terms, what, are essentially oaths , . 232 

"There, stop there" 63 

"Thou" and "thee," the scriptural terms 235 

Thought sometimes inexpressible 285 

Throne of God, shadows about the . . . • 196 

Tidal wave, a, of infidelity 206 

Tonic-like, nothing, in profanity Ill 

Tourist, the accomplished 119 



310 INDEX OF TOPICS 

PAGE 

Turks, Algerine, not originally profane 58 

Under oath, the common swearer 266 

Universal praise, a call to 219 

Usurpation, a case of 92 

Veneration of God not superstition 168 

Veracity, profanity never strengthens 126 

Veto of profanity, Christ's 223 

Vice, the tyranny of 141 

" " close relation of each, to every other . . . .131 

1 ' Christians too cowardly towards 245 

Viper, a poisonous 283 

Voice, a, from the past 242 

Vulgar, the, profanity always the vice of 90 

Washington's aversion to profanity 260 

" military order on profanity 261 

Wit, the brilliant 89 

" profanity not excused by a spirit of 80 

" sometimes a two-edged sword ; 247 

Woman, the religious nature of 101 

" never injured the Saviour 102 

" swearing more degrading to, than to man . 101 

" an appropriate sentiment for 102 

Words, the medium of life Ill 

" lost forever 125 

" the reactive effects of 134 

Work, cheap 82 

World, this self-recording 71 

Wren's, Sir Christopher, pastor 259 

"Yea" and "nay," the Friend's 234 

Young, John, on primitive faith in God 169 

Youth, the effects of profanity on 112 

" warned against irreverent speech 133 

Ziethen, Gen. incident of 55 



I 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVAT.ON 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 610 014 2 



